transparency, provenance and consumer protection facts and ... · facts and policy recommendations...

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Transparency, Provenance and Consumer ProtectionFacts and Policy Recommendations Concerning the Trade in Ancient

Cultural Property in Germany

Findings of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s Collaborative Project »Analysing the Dark Figure as a Basis for Countering and Preventing Crime

Using the Example of Ancient Cultural Property«

(ILLICID)

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Foreword .......................................................................................................................................................................

0 Summary ................................................................................................................................................................. Objectives and Project Design ................................................................................................................................. Volume of Trading, Provenance and Authenticity ................................................................................................... Digital Monitoring and Surveying of Stakeholders ................................................................................................... Policy recommendations ......................................................................................................................................... Field of action I: Awareness-raising ................................................................................................................ Task 1: Raising awareness of the problem and increasing perceived accountability .......................... Sidebar Measure A: Public information campaigns and publicity formats ............................ Sidebar Measure B: Expanded curricula of universities and (basic or further) training programmes .......................................................................................................................... Sidebar Measure C: Primary and secondary education ......................................................... Task 2: Raising awareness of historical contexts .................................................................................. Sidebar Measure D: Research and publication of provenance information .......................... Field of action II: Strengthening legal trade and consumer protection ........................................................... Task 3: Increasing transparency ............................................................................................................ Sidebar Measure E: Digitisation of trade publications ........................................................... Sidebar Measure F: Disclosure of objects’ documentation ................................................... Sidebar Measure G: Transparency register of ancient cultural objects ................................. Sidebar Measure H: Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects (the so-called Antiquity passport) ............................................................................................................................... Task 4: Strengthening consumer protection ......................................................................................... Sidebar Measure I: Database of presumptively forged cultural objects ................................ Sidebar Measure J: »Cultural Property Trade« stakeholder forum ........................................ Field of action III: Monitoring, inspections and strengthening executive oversight ........................................ Task 5: Identifying ancient cultural objects that are inauthentic or were not legally traded .............. Sidebar Measure K: Continuation of the digitally assisted monitoring and implementation of the ICT tools developed as part of the ILLICID project ..................................................... Task 6: Strengthening executive oversight ........................................................................................... Sidebar Measure L: Network of experts to support executive oversight ..............................

1 Facts Concerning the Trade in Ancient Cultural Property in Germany ..................................................................... 1.1 Research questions and objectives ................................................................................................................. 1.2 Project design and methods ........................................................................................................................... 1.3 Overview of key findings ................................................................................................................................ 1.3.1 Volume of trade and object categories ............................................................................................... 1.3.2 Provenance ......................................................................................................................................... 1.3.2.1 Assessment of provenance statements according to the German Cultural Property Protection Act ....................................................................................................................... 1.3.2.2 Assessment of provenance statements according to the EU regulations regarding Iraq and Syria ............................................................................................................................... 1.3.2.3 Assessment of provenance statements according to the UNESCO Convention of 1970 ...... 1.3.2.4 Assessment of provenance statements according to the respective laws of the countries of origin ................................................................................................................................ 1.3.3 Authenticity ........................................................................................................................................ 1.3.4 Revenue and object movements ......................................................................................................... 1.3.5 Potential for money laundering ........................................................................................................... 1.3.6 Potential for financing terrorist activities and armed conflicts via illicit trafficking in cultural property .............................................................................................................................................. 1.3.7 Development of digital monitoring tools ............................................................................................. 1.3.8 Findings of stakeholder surveys ...........................................................................................................

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2 Policy Recommendations: Challenges, Tasks, Measures .......................................................................................... 2.1 Field of action I: Awareness-raising ................................................................................................................ 2.1.1 Task 1: Raising awareness of the problem and increasing perceived accountability .............................. Sidebar Measure A: Public information campaigns and publicity formats ............................ Sidebar Measure B: Expanded curricula of universities and (basic or further) training programmes .......................................................................................................................... Sidebar Measure C: Primary and secondary education ......................................................... 2.1.2 Task 2: Raising awareness of historical contexts .................................................................................. Sidebar Measure D: Research and publication of provenance information .......................... 2.2 Field of action II: Strengthening legal trade and consumer protection .......................................................... 2.2.1 Task 3: Increasing transparency ........................................................................................................... Sidebar Measure E: Digitisation of trade publications ........................................................... Sidebar Measure F: Disclosure of objects’ documentation ................................................... Sidebar Measure G: Transparency register of ancient cultural objects ................................. Sidebar Measure H: Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects (the so-called Antiquity passport) ............................................................................................................................... 2.2.2 Task 4: Strengthening consumer protection ................................................................................................... Sidebar Measure I: Database of presumptively forged cultural objects ................................ Sidebar Measure J: »Cultural Property Trade« stakeholder forum ........................................ 2.3 Field of action III: Monitoring, inspections and strengthening executive oversight ....................................... 2.3.1 Task 5: Identifying ancient cultural objects that are inauthentic or were not legally traded .............. Sidebar Measure K: Continuation of the digitally assisted monitoring and implementation of the ICT tools developed as part of the ILLICID project ..................................................... 2.3.2 Task 6: Strengthening executive oversight .......................................................................................... Sidebar Measure L: Network of experts to support executive oversight .............................. Indices ........................................................................................................................................................................... Works cited .............................................................................................................................................................. Print ................................................................................................................................................................ Press and internet ........................................................................................................................................... Legal framework (national & international) .................................................................................................... Figures, Maps, Tables ..............................................................................................................................................

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This report on facts and policy recommendations concerning the trade in ancient cultural objects1 in Germany is based on the academic findings of the transdisciplinary research project ILLICID (»Analysing the Dark Figure as a Basis for Coun-tering and Preventing Crime Using the Example of Ancient Cultural Property«), which received financial support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) between 2015 and 2018 under the »Research for Civil Security« programme (call for proposals »Civil Security: Protection against Organised Crime«). These policy recommendations are targeted at a variety of stakeholders whose duties cover the trade in ancient cultural objects. Their publication aims to raise transparency and strengthen consumer protection in a segment of the trade in cultural objects that is subject to special conditions due to the legally protected status generally accorded to ancient cultural objects. As the world’s first research project of its kind, the ILLICID project has not only successfully developed and piloted scholarly methods for describing and analysing the trade in ancient cultural objects, but has also developed recommendations for putting the research findings into practice. It has thus laid academically rigorous groundwork for improving the parameters of the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany, taking into consideration the special significance of these cultural artefacts as well as the necessity of a heightened level of consumer protection in this area.

The research findings presented here are based exclusively on the application of scholarly methods to a public and freely accessible segment of the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany with the purpose of demonstrating the potential and the limits of this type of purely academic approach to information gathering. For this reason, in its project findings, the report will only present facts produced by this application of conventional scholarly methods to the area of enquiry described here. The project team members did not have access to information that is not publicly available, such as the findings of official investigations, which therefore could not be taken into consideration.

The authors wish to thank, first and foremost, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for funding the research project, and the VDI Technologiezentrum, which served as the project management agency on the BMBF’s behalf and guided the research project’s implementation with dedication and expertise. Furthermore, we are deeply grateful for the collaborating institutions who were responsible for carrying out research tasks in the project: the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (Fraunhofer SIT). As the lead institution in the collaborative pro-ject, the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, which includes the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (the State Museums of Berlin), supported the research project in wide-ranging ways and contributed considerably to its successful execution. Special thanks therefore goes to the President of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Prof. Hermann Parzinger, as well as the project participants Dr Elisabeth Katzy and Dr Robert Kuhn. At the consortium partner GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, we would like to thank the director of the sub-project, Prof. Nicole Biedinger and her team: Simon Börlin, Wanda Otto, Moritz Fahrenholz and Dr Steffen Pötzschke. At the consortium partner Fraunhofer Institute for Secure In-formation Technology (Fraunhofer SIT), we would like to thank the co-directors of the sub-project, Dr Martin Steinebach and Dr Marcel Schäfer, as well as to the project team members Oren Halvani, Huajian Liu, Felix Mayer and York Yannikos. They have all played seminal roles towards the scholarly success of this collaborative project.

It would have been impossible to implement such a transdisciplinary project design without the constructive collabo-ration of the research project’s associate partners, to whom we also owe our heartfelt appreciation: the Federal Foreign Office (Berlin), the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Berlin, Bonn), the Federal Criminal Po-lice Office (Wiesbaden), the Austrian Criminal Police Office and Security Academy (Vienna, Austria), the German Archae-ological Institute (DAI), the German Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Heidelberg Centre for Cultural Heritage (HCCH) – Heidelberg University, the Criminal Police Office of the Land of Hesse, Harz University of Applied Sciences Department of Public Management, the International Council of Muse-ums (ICOM), Verband Unabhängiger Kunstsachverständiger (League of Independent Art Specialists, Stuttgart), ZEIS Cen-tre for European and International Studies in Criminal Law (Osnabrück) and the Customs Criminological Office (Cologne).

The Cultural Foundation of the Länder financially supported the editorial revisions and publication of these policy recommendations, for which we are deeply grateful.

Foreword

Foreword

Berlin, December 2019 Birthe HemeierMarkus Hilgert

1 For the project’s underlying definition of »ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region« as its area of enquiry, see 1.2 »Project design and methods«.

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This report on facts and policy recommendations con-cerning the trade in ancient cultural objects2 in Germany is based on the academic findings of the transdisciplinary research project ILLICID (»Analysing the Dark Figure as a Basis for Countering and Preventing Crime Using the Exam-ple of Ancient Cultural Property«), which was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the »Research for Civil Security« programme (call for proposals »Civil Security: Protection against Organised Crime«). These policy recommendations are targeted at a variety of stakeholders whose duties cover the trade in an-cient cultural objects. Their publication aims to raise trans-parency and strengthen consumer protection in a segment of the trade in cultural objects that is subject to special conditions due to the legally protected status generally ac-corded to ancient cultural objects. As the world’s first re-search project of its kind, the ILLICID project has not only successfully developed and piloted scholarly methods for describing and analysing the trade in ancient cultural ob-jects, but has also developed recommendations for putting the research findings into practice. It has thus laid academ-ically rigorous groundwork for improving the parameters of the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany, taking into consideration the special significance of these cultural artefacts as well as the necessity of a heightened level of consumer protection in this area.

The research findings presented here are based exclu-sively on the application of scholarly methods to a public and freely accessible segment of the trade in ancient cultur-al objects in Germany with the purpose of demonstrating the potential and the limits of this type of purely academic approach to information gathering. For this reason, in its project findings, the report will only present facts produced by this application of conventional scholarly methods to the area of enquiry described here. The project team members did not have access to information that is not publicly avail-able, such as the findings of official investigations, which therefore could not be taken into consideration.

Objectives and Project Design

The objective of the ILLICID project was to develop and pi-lot scholarly methods enabling the identification and de-scription of characteristic traits of the opaque zone as it

relates to the illicit trafficking in cultural property in Ger-many.3 For the purposes of this study, the opaque zone is defined as the portion of publicly visible trade in ancient cultural objects whose legality or illegality is not readily distinguishable on the basis of public and freely accessible information (e. g. auction catalogues, online platforms or trade fairs). The project set out to evaluate its working hy-pothesis that the trade in ancient cultural objects, as with uncertified diamonds, is characterised by an absent or opaque distinction between the legal and illegal segments. The demonstrably legal market segment consists of ancient cultural property with export licenses or another verifiable purchase pre-dating the entry into force of the applicable provisions under national or international law.

Objects can be clearly identified as illegal for trade if they are inauthentic, reported as stolen or listed on an offi-cial register as missing cultural objects. If an ancient culture object originated from an illegal excavation, for example – as with the uncertified diamond trade – its inclusion on an official national register cannot be presumed. Rather, by its very nature, illegally excavated cultural property categori-cally cannot be recorded in official registers. Such objects and all others without meaningful accompanying docu-mentation verifiably demonstrating their legal provenance and export cannot be clearly and readily classified within one of the two segments of trade (legal or illicit).

As long as cultural objects, which are generally subject to strong legal trading restrictions or bans, can be placed on the market and sold without official documentation demonstrating the legality of the objects for sale, it will re-main impossible for consumers to make a reliable distinc-tion between legally traded and illicitly trafficked cultural objects. They cannot but worry that the cultural objects for sale might include inauthentic objects or artefacts from il-legal excavations, for example.

To achieve the research project’s methodological and thematic objectives, a transdisciplinary project design was developed in which both academic and non-academic stakeholders collaborated and contributed their respective knowledge and skills.4 The consortium partners were an-tiquities experts (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, SPK), survey researchers (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) and information technologists (Fraunhofer Insti-tute for Secure Information Technology, SIT). These were supported by associated partners from the spheres of aca-demia, politics, risk prevention and law enforcement.

0 Summary

2 For the project’s underlying definition of »ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region« as its area of enquiry, see 1.2 »Project design and methods«.

3 See 1.1 »Research questions and objectives«.4 See 1.2 »Project design and methods«.

Summary

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Volume of Trading, Provenance and Authenticity

Using the stated methods of market analysis by antiquities experts, the project made the preliminary determination that the volume of trading in such objects was consider-ably higher than had been anticipated during the project design stage.5 Among the total of 386,500 objects on offer that were researched and viewed over a 24-month period, 3,741 lots comprising 6,133 ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region (ACOMs) were designat-ed to be project-relevant. Among those, the scholars clas-sified 2,387 objects (38.9 %) as being highly likely to have originated in Iraq or Syria. Of the 289 stakeholders and plat-forms viewed by the antiquities experts, 197 of which were regularly assessed, 90 offered ACOMs for sale in Germany. Among those, more than 65 % of the objects were on offer in locations in southern Germany. However, a steady shift to internet-based trading was observed. In addition to the individual websites of established traders, auction hous-es support live online bidding. On larger Internet market-places, both auction houses and private individuals posted objects for sale whose authenticity and provenance – i. e., documentation of a legal trade channel – were generally not verifiable based on the publicly provided information.

More than half the objects were for sale as aggregate lots (n = 3,375). This significantly complicated the analysis of individual objects and the provenance examination re-quired under the Cultural Property Protection Act (KGSG) of 31 July 2016 (entry into force on 6 August 2016) because in most cases the postings were merely accompanied by photographs of complete lots and unspecific information about the provenance of the objects for sale. Aggregate lots were not reserved for groups of pottery shards or frag-ments of other object types offered at a low price, but were also used for groups of stone statuary heads or terracotta pieces that could fetch five-figure sums on the internation-al market. However, the valuation of ancient cultural ob-jects solely on the basis of their sale prices generally does not do justice to their significance, for illegal excavations irrevocably destroy the archaeological context irrespective of the monetary value of individual cultural objects.

The provenance statements regarding objects for sale provided to prospective buyers are a central element for the process of describing and academically evaluating the opaque zone.6 These provenance statements were rated for their verifiability according to a five-level criteria cata-logue developed as part of the ILLICID project. This rating system was based on various national and international le-gal standards and agreements, each with different regula-tions on threshold dates. Under the Cultural Property Pro-tection Act, legally specified due diligence requirements must be met before placing cultural property on the mar-

ket, especially when listing an object or executing a sale. In regard to the commercial trade in cultural property, the law stipulates in part that a cultural object’s provenance is to be examined and records must be kept of the examina-tion’s individual steps and outcome. Granted, the law does not include a legal obligation to publish these records in an auction catalogue entry or as part of an Internet listing of a cultural object. However, because presenting a max-imally transparent chain of provenance has the effect of boosting value and therefore the potential to enhance the sale, there is generally no valid reason to conceal available information about an object’s origins.

When the scholars analysed the provenance state-ments published by the vendors according to the stipula-tions of the Cultural Property Protection Act, they found that a mere 2.1 % of project-relevant cultural objects trad-ed in Germany could be verifiably classified as belonging to the clear zone. Thus, 97.9 % of ACOMs offered for sale in Germany would be classified as part of the opaque zone of trade. Cultural objects originating from the countries of Iraq and Syria constitute a legal special case. They have been specially protected by two regulations that are directly ap-plicable in all EU member states. According to the burden of proof provisions arising from these EU regulations,7 the importer or vendor of such objects must prove, if in doubt, that the artefacts were located outside their countries of origin before the threshold dates stipulated in the respec-tive regulations. Of the 6,133 objects in the observation period, the antiquities experts ascertained that 2,387 were highly likely to have originated in Iraq or Syria. That corre-sponds to 38.9 % of the full volume of project-relevant ob-jects considered. Based on the vendors’ self-declarations, only 43.8 % of objects from Iraq and 61.9 % of those from Syria fulfilled the legal criteria to be placed on the market. However, this was only verifiable for 0.4 % (Iraq) and 9.6 % (Syria) of objects for sale based on the publicly available in-formation. In other words, for 99.6 % of the potentially Ira-qi cultural objects and 90.4 % of the potentially Syrian cul-tural objects, there was no verifiable documentation that they had been on the market before the threshold dates stipulated in the EU regulations. This is an alarming finding given the strict import, export and trade restrictions that apply to ancient cultural objects from these two countries due to the EU regulations throughout the European Union as well as in light of the ongoing, extensive destruction and looting of ancient cultural property in these countries.

The ILLICID project systematically investigated the ex-tent to which it is possible to assess ACOMs’ authenticity based on the publicly available information provided by the vendors.8 The precision, transparency and verifiability of the statements made by the vendors played a central role in that investigation. These statements must make an object’s authenticity reliably and authoritatively percepti-ble, even for laypeople. In regard to the ACOMs assessed as part of the ILLICID project, it can be concluded in summary

5 See 1.3.2 »Provenance«.6 See 1.3.2 »Provenance«.

7 Regulation (EC) no. 1210/2003 and Regulation (EU) no. 1332/2013.8 See 1.3.3 »Authenticity«.

Summary

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that, on the basis of an expert appraisal of photographs, not quite one out of every two artefacts traded in Germa-ny (43.72 %) could be designated as putatively authentic ancient cultural property from the eastern Mediterranean region. For 22.64 %, the appraisal tended towards assum-ing that the object for sale was inauthentic. For another 33.62 % of the objects analysed, the authenticity could not be conclusively resolved using the available informa-tion, even by an expert in the field. In other words, for more than half (56.3 %) of the allegedly ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region analysed during the investigation period, the objects’ authenticity as claimed by the vendor could not be affirmed from an expert’s perspective and must be called into doubt. This finding is also highly problematic from the standpoint of consumer protection.

Digital Monitoring and Surveying of Stake-holders

As part of their sub-project, academics at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology investigated the extent to which investigatory agencies and experts in the field could in future be assisted by information and communications technology (ICT) in their efforts to cap-ture and assess cultural objects that are visibly traded in public.9 In this endeavour, they sought primarily to address three focus areas: making monitoring less time-consuming, achieving persistent access to fast-moving online business and supporting law enforcement agencies and customs authorities. The context is the comparatively large quan-tity of ancient cultural objects being traded in Germany and the demand for academically sound, rapidly available preliminary assessments of objects. To that end, they cre-ated a technical plan and implemented a strategy for col-lecting and retaining data on potentially pertinent internet listings of objects. They also developed a pattern-recogni-tion feature for such listings. This work primarily focused on broad-scale automation of time-intensive procedural steps, such as identifying and retaining relevant listings, tasks which had typically been performed manually in the past. To that end, demonstration prototypes were devel-oped for crawlers, as was persistent data retention, image recognition, and an app, which all demonstrate the poten-tial of technological options for monitoring and prelimi-narily assessing ancient cultural objects both on the mar-ket and in cargo.

As part of their sub-project, the survey researchers at the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences con-ducted a systematic anonymous survey of various stake-holder groups.10 This survey was designed specifically for

the project and was piloted in a pre-test stage. Dealers, auction houses, museums, foundations and collections, experts, appraisers, restorers and investigatory agencies were surveyed about their experiences with the trade and the volume of objects. Private collectors, who are impor-tant stakeholders in the market, could not be surveyed in the framework of the project because it would have re-quired disproportionally high effort to identify and contact such a specialised and heterogeneous group. The goal was to gain insight into the scope, network structures, sales channels and assessments of individuals involved in the trade. Above all, the analysis of the survey brought to light many important avenues for developing policy recommen-dations in regard to the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany.

Policy recommendations

On the basis of the research findings produced by the transdisciplinary ILLICID project, we can outline policy recommendations with the aim of strengthening the legal trade in cultural objects in Germany, increasing consumer protection and improving the parameters in Germany for crime prevention and crime fighting in connection with the illicit trafficking in cultural property.11 These policy recom-mendations are categorised within three general fields of action, each with its own specific challenges, correspond-ing tasks and concrete measures to implement those tasks as described in this report. The three general fields of ac-tion are:

I. Awareness-raisingII. Strengthening legal trade and consumer protectionIII. Monitoring, inspections and strengthening executive oversight

Field of action I: Awareness-raising

Task 1: Raising awareness of the problem and increasing perceived accountability

The ILLICID project has demonstrated that for the vast ma-jority of ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediter-ranean region traded in Germany, it is impossible to gauge reliably on the sole basis of publicly accessible information about an object whether a listing is legal. This is a severe-ly problematic finding in light of the stringent legal and ethical provisions that apply to the treatment of ancient cultural objects on both a national and international level.

9 See 1.3.7 »Development of digital monitoring tools«.10 See 1.3.8 »Findings of stakeholder surveys«.

11 See 2 »Policy recommendations: Challenges, tasks, measures«.

Summary

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Thus, a core challenge lies in raising awareness of the mac-rosocial significance of cultural property, of the dangers to which these cultural objects are exposed and of the special responsibility held by institutions and individuals who are active in the trade in cultural property.

Task 2: Raising awareness of historical contexts

In Europe, from an historical perspective, the trade in and the collecting of ancient cultural property from non-Euro-pean countries of origin are inextricably linked to asym-metrical power relations that, in many cases, have effects extending into the present day. When building societal awareness of the treatment of ancient cultural property from non-European countries of origin and their usually in-adequate provenance documentation, it is essential to ac-knowledge this context and the fact that future conscien-tious treatment of cultural objects can help to improve the political, economic, academic and cultural exchange with the respective countries of origin. It is therefore impera-tive to strengthen public awareness of these issues: the numerous complex historic contexts of cultural objects from non-European countries of origin, the importance of researching the provenance of such collection holdings in Germany, and the political and economic impacts resulting from historical asymmetries, which are also indirectly ex-pressed in illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects, past and present.

Summary

Field of action II: Strengthening legal trade and consumer protection

Task 3: Increasing transparency

The trade in ancient cultural objects relies on transparen-cy and trust. Regulations that make the legality of traded objects identifiable and thus permit a clear distinction be-tween the market’s legal and illegal segments bolster ven-dors and buyers alike, and therefore enhance Germany’s status as an art market. To date, there has been a lack of tools to enable such a clear distinction between legally traded and illicitly trafficked traded ancient cultural prop-erty. The findings of the ILLICID project indicate that the vast majority of traded ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region are apparently placed on

Measure A: Public information campaigns and publicity formatsIn the field of conservation (protected animal and plant species), public information campaigns both in the media and at well-visited public places such as airports and rail-way stations have been extraordinarily effective in building widespread awareness of the cause of conservation and in spurring lasting changes in civilians’ behaviour. A corre-sponding shift in behaviour and awareness is needed in the area of cultural objects. We therefore recommend plan-ning and carrying out public information campaigns that are able to trigger a lasting shift in behaviour and aware-ness by specifically addressing the consequences of illegal excavations and looting as well as the seminal importance of legal, transparent provenance of traded cultural proper-ty. At the same time, it is recommended that institutional collections of cultural objects establish formats for pres-entation and communications towards the same objective of effecting such a shift in society’s behaviour and aware-ness. In this respect, more than most, the collections of museums and universities serve as public platforms for embedding cultural property within the context of its cul-tural and social history.

Measure B: Expanded curricula of universities and (basic or further) training programmesLikewise, it seems both sensible and necessary for mem-bers of the executive branch, the judicial branch and aca-demic experts in the field to deepen their knowledge about the challenges of determining the provenance of protected cultural objects – and about cultural property protection in general. We therefore recommend integrating these topics as extensively as possible into the corresponding curricula of universities and (basic or further) training programmes. Additionally, a systematic survey should be conducted to assess the demand for basic and further training catered to employees of other relevant stakeholders, such as insti-tutions that preserve cultural property, judicial authorities and trade supervisory authorities.

Measure C: Primary and secondary educationThe extent to which the social significance and protection of cultural objects can be more prominently incorporated into school curricula merits further investigation. Aware-ness of the value of culture and respect of the cultural objects of one’s own and other societies cannot begin too early. As sites of extracurricular learning, museums can make an important contribution to this working in cooper-ation with schools.

Measure D: Research and publication of provenance infor-mation With an eye to raising public awareness of the complex historical contexts of ancient cultural objects from non-Eu-ropean countries of origin, greater efforts should be made to research the provenance of such cultural objects, espe-cially those held in public collections, and to publish the findings of this research and incorporate them, as appro-priate, in museum exhibitions and communications. This would also create a commercial incentive.

11Summary

the market without transparent and verifiable information regarding their provenance despite the existence of clear legal regulations. That means that even given compliance with the due diligence requirements stipulated in the Cul-tural Property Protection Act, it cannot be entirely ruled out in future that ancient cultural property with unclear provenance statements will be traded in Germany.

The primary goal in strengthening Germany as an art market with a trade in ancient cultural objects must there-fore be to introduce binding and enforceable regulations to establish transparency about the legality and authentic-ity of the objects traded, on the basis of which all market players can make a clear distinction between legally traded and illicitly trafficked objects. Only transparent, verifiable provenance effectively and sustainably protects the market from infiltration by illicitly trafficked or forged objects. This is undoubtedly also in the interests of trade. The prereq-uisites to ensuring greater consumer protection through transparent evidence of legality and authenticity include meaningful digital documentation of the objects trad-ed, disclosure of their provenance and their certification, based on this documentation, as cultural objects that may be legally traded.

Measure E: Digitisation of trade publicationsIn order to make it easier for all those involved in the trade in ancient cultural objects to access information on ancient cultural objects that have been on the market for a long time, inventories, post-1945 auction catalogues and compa-rable documents should be made available to a wider pub-lic. Currently, there is no publicly accessible library focused on comprehensively collecting this backlog of trade publica-tions. They lie scattered and incompletely collated across a wide range of libraries, commercial entities and museums. Pre-1945 auction catalogues have already been collated in accordance with the guidelines of the International Council on Archives as part of the reckoning with the confiscation of cultural property due to Nazi persecution, and are digitally accessible. A similar initiative to digitise and digitally pub-lish post-1945 trade publications is recommended.

Measure F: Disclosure of objects’ documentationIt is recommended that appropriate action be taken to ensure that for all ancient cultural objects listed for sale, available documentation about the object (particularly its export permit, provenance certificate, meaningful imag-es, restoration documentation, proof of authenticity) that verifiably demonstrates the listing’s legality is duly pub-lished together with the object in question. In the process, compliance with the applicable data protection provisions must be maintained. Furthermore, the practice of listing ancient cultural objects in larger aggregate lots should not serve the purpose of foregoing diligent object descriptions and provenance documentation. In this context, the due

diligence requirements stipulated by the Cultural Property Protection Act should be defined more precisely and con-cretely in order to assist stakeholders who are striving for a legal market in ancient cultural property. It would make sense, for example, to have a regulation according to which only ancient cultural objects with at least one detailed, verifiably legal provenance and at least two meaningful, unambiguous images may be listed for sale. This could be based on a brochure or check-list for the trade and for consumers, such as the five-level provenance assessment scheme developed in the framework of the ILLICID pro-ject. Corresponding resources and information about how to treat ancient cultural property could be published on the website www.kulturgutschutz-deutschland.de.

Measure G: Transparency register of ancient cultural ob-jectsTo establish the necessary transparency in the trade with ancient cultural objects in Germany, measures should be implemented with the aim of conclusively recording the status quo of the clear zone of ancient cultural property and the documentation available on it, initially for Ger-many. One role model could be the EU’s transparency register, introduced in 2017, partly in the context of the regulation on due diligence requirements for the trade in zinc, tungsten, tantalum and gold. To this end, at first on a voluntary basis, ancient cultural objects under public or private ownership that are demonstrably legal for trade and are to be placed on the market in future should be inspected, described, documented, appraised by experts, digitally archived and officially registered. In these efforts, it should be assessed whether the public authorities can create incentives that make it attractive for private individ-uals to participate in such registration. The benefits of such an official registration include reliable authentication and cultural-historical classification of ancient cultural property as well as, where applicable, giving the prospective vendor (legal) certainty that it will be legally possible to place the object on the market in future. The transparency of the clear zone this would generate could prevent forged or il-licitly trafficked ancient cultural property from entering the German market.

Measure H: Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects (the so-called Antiquity passport)Other operational models for generating lasting transpar-ency for the trade in ancient cultural objects could include the measures combating the traffic in the so-called blood diamonds, the Washington Convention for endangered species and the associated WISIA (Information System on International Species Conservation) process,12 or the sys-tem of vehicle registration documents. In the case of the so-called blood diamonds, it was the Kimberly Process certification scheme (KPCS), which the EU implemented

12 Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, n. d.

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Task 4: Strengthening consumer protection

Today, purchasing ancient cultural property is primarily a question of trust. In light of largely inadequate or lacking documentation of provenance, the absence of official cer-tification of authenticity and legality of traded ancient cul-tural objects and the divergent documentation standards for ancient cultural objects traded in Germany, we must ask how consumer protection can be improved and thus how the German art market can be buttressed overall. To date, there is no data available on consumers’ trust in the deal-ers and auction houses participating in the trade in ancient cultural property in Germany. Conceivably, would-be buyers may well presume that trade in ancient cultural property is subject to a high level of regulation and/or state supervision, and may have faith in vendors’ transparency and reliability. To justify this possible trust on the part of consumers, in future, transparent and verifiably legal provenance should be an indispensable prerequisite for purchasing ancient cul-tural property in Germany (see Measures E–H). Moreover, the state should regularly and comprehensively monitor the

Summary

Measure I: Database of presumptively forged cultural ob-jects The problem of the high proportion of presumptive forger-ies in the trade in cultural objects is not a new one. Estab-lished in 1898, the International Association of Museum Officials for Defence against Forgeries and Improper Busi-ness Practices cultivated knowledge exchange through an image archive and annual conferences. Its activities ended with the Second World War. In the case of paintings, there are currently private-sector efforts to pool painstakingly gathered information. Information on listings subject to justified suspicions of forgery are gathered and provided for a fee to members of the Association of German Art Auc-tioneers (BDK). Here, a private initiative supplements the state’s consumer protection. In countries such as Turkey, a state forgery database is already a standard, open-access resource. France offers another best-practice example with

Measure J: »Cultural Property Trade« stakeholder forumThe sustainable protection of cultural objects is a chal-lenge that can only be addressed by a collaborative effort of all relevant private-sector and societal stakeholders. In a regularly convening »Cultural Property Trade« forum, stakeholders in the cultural property trade should there-fore have a fundamental discussion about and, wherever possible, reach consensus on guidelines, measures and, if necessary, the expansion of consumer protection. Ideally, concrete steps to address illicit trafficking in ancient cultur-al objects should also be coordinated with all stakeholders in order to make decisions with the greatest possible con-sensus, thus establishing permanent protection for ancient cultural property. The »Cultural Property Trade« stakehold-er forum was intended specifically to bring together expert scholars, representatives of museums, archives, libraries, university collections, the trade and its trade associations, private collectors and art law professionals as well as ex-perts from the investigatory agencies, the federal and Land administration and political decision-makers. Represent-atives of countries of origin and international institutions of cultural property protection should likewise be closely involved in the development of relevant guidelines and measures.

with Council Regulation (EC) no. 2368/2002 of 20 Decem-ber 2002, that made the crucial breakthrough. Today, only diamonds from certified, demonstrably legal mines may be traded, thus permanently stemming the tide of »blood diamonds« from war and conflict zones into the European market. In the same spirit, a procedure based on the trans-parency register should be developed to certify cultural objects that could potentially be traded legally before they are placed on the market. A sort of the so-called antiquity passport could prove that the authenticity and provenance of the corresponding ancient cultural object has been re-viewed and verified. In cooperation with the World Cus-toms Organisation, UNESCO has already drafted a Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects.

its communication, moderation and supervision entity, the Conseil des Ventes Volontaires (CVV). Against this back-drop, Germany is likewise recommended to establish a public database of putatively forged cultural objects; more-over, an EU-wide platform in this area should be sought.

existence of suitably meaningful provenance information.Finally, in view of the relatively high proportion of inau-thentic objects to be suspected based on the findings of the ILLICID project, measures should also be taken to effec-tively protect consumers from purchasing forged objects. The availability of consumer guidance by independent cer-tified experts should urgently be expanded. This could be implemented, in particular, in the framework of the expert network proposed by this study (Measure L).

Field of action III: Monitoring, inspections and strengthening executive oversight

Task 5: Identifying ancient cultural objects that are inau-thentic or were not legally traded

Illegally trafficked ancient cultural property can only be identified through research and inspections because such objects can be concealed in legal listings or sold outside

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regular trading. Thus, illegal trafficking in cultural property is a classic example of an offence unlikely to be reported (»Kontrolldelikt«). If no targeted inspections are conduct-ed, the statistics will not show any illicit trafficking in an-cient cultural property. The ILLICID project has shown that there is a large number and variety of vendors of ACOMs in Germany. However, the trade supervisory authorities and in some cases investigatory agencies do not have sufficient capacity for close monitoring of these market stakeholders. Furthermore, as the ILLICID project has also demonstrated, potentially legally traded cultural property can only sel-dom be clearly distinguished from illicitly trafficked cultural property on the basis of public and freely available infor-mation; the ancient cultural objects’ countries of origin, for example, can only be identified with great effort and corresponding scholarly expertise. As a result, the effective implementation of the applicable German and EU legal stipulations governing the trade in ancient cultural objects requires measures that can ensure ongoing expert moni-toring of the objects being traded and, as needed, effective inspections of the market stakeholders.

The identification of inauthentic or illicitly trafficked ancient cultural objects could benefit considerably from the implementation of the following measures as recom-mended above:

• Digitisation of trade publications (Measure E) • Disclosure of objects’ documentation (Measure F)• Transparency register of ancient cultural objects (Measure G)• Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects (the so- called Antiquity passport) (Measure H) • Database of presumptively forged cultural objects (Measure I)

In addition, the following supplementary measures appear sensible:

Summary

systematic monitoring of the trade in ACOMs by antiquities experts revealed an unexpectedly high volume of objects not previously known to the investigatory agencies at the Land and federal levels. In particular, for the antiquity mar-ket in cultural objects from Iraq and Syria, which overall is strictly regulated by the corresponding EU regulations re-garding Iraq and Syria, both the quantity of 2,387 objects over a 24-month period and the 38.9 % share of the Ger-man ACOM trade are alarmingly high.

Accordingly, expert monitoring of the trade in ancient cultural objects that is as comprehensive as possible ap-pears to be one of the key prerequisites for successful ef-forts by the federal and Land authorities to address illicit trafficking in cultural property in Germany as well as for a robust future assessment of the effectiveness of the new legal regulations in this area. This monitoring scheme could build on the experiences of the ILLICID project and the methods developed during the project. To cope with the high volume of objects, as part of the ILLICID project, the Fraunhofer Institute also researched and trialled ICT tools that significantly relieve the burden on customs authori-ties, experts and investigatory agencies. The ICT tools that have already been developed and coordinated among the respective experts are to be piloted, refined for operation-al maturity, and provided to the investigatory agencies. To test-run the application’s maturity, corresponding author-ities must be willing to integrate the ICT tools in question (crawling, data retention, implementing the mobile app) into their workflows.

Measure K: Continuation of the digitally assisted monitor-ing and implementation of the ICT tools developed as part of the ILLICID projectAside from the shortage of expertise both at the investiga-tive agencies and the supervisory authorities (e. g., trade supervisory authorities) and for the assistance of private individuals, efforts to effectively address illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects face another grave problem: the fact that the employees of federal and Land author-ities lack the capacity to continuously and systematically monitor the diverse and highly fragmented market in an-cient cultural objects in Germany. For this reason, it is not currently possible to efficiently monitor the trade or to appropriately enforce existing and/or new due diligence requirements governing the handling of ancient cultural objects. With that in mind, reference should be made to the ILLICID project’s findings, which clearly show that the

Task 6: Strengthening executive oversight

One of the core, fundamental problems in addressing il-licit trafficking in ancient cultural objects in Germany is that the federal and Land authorities do not currently have direct, comprehensive access to the diverse range of scholarly competencies that are absolutely necessary in order to authenticate and identify ancient cultural ob-jects. However, in many instances, the authorities’ ability to take further action depends on the rapid availability of precise, academically rigorous information about the gen-uineness and origins of an object. Decisions on whether to launch an investigation or to conduct policing measures such as seizure ultimately rely on these sorts of art-his-torical and cultural-historical assessments of the ancient cultural property by the authorities responsible and are generally extremely time-critical. One source of particular difficulty is that ancient cultural objects are looted and in-jected into the market throughout the world. As a result, an extraordinarily wide range of knowledge is required to identify and classify them, coming from numerous dif-ferent academic disciplines including African studies, Na-tive American studies, Classical and Near Eastern/Middle Eastern/West Asian Archaeology, Ancient Middle Eastern Studies, Indology and East Asian art history. At present, these diverse and often uncommon scholarly competen-

14

cies are entirely external to the federal and Land authori-ties that hold responsibility for addressing illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects in Germany. Suitable experts are generally employed by universities, non-university re-search institutions and institutions of cultural preserva-tion such as museums.

Due to the large number and complexity of the aca-demic specialisms required to classify ancient cultural ob-jects, for example in the context of investigations, it is not possible for the employees of the authorities concerned to acquire this knowledge at an adequate level themselves. Neither does it presently seem practical or financially fea-sible for all these federal and Land authorities to hire new scholarly employees who can duly represent all the rele-vant areas of scholarly expertise.

To ensure that all authorities and organisations con-cerned with protecting cultural objects and addressing the illicit traffic in cultural property have rapid access to experts who work reliably, independently, efficiently and confiden-tially in line with objective criteria, and to avoid redundant inspection orders, there appears to be an urgent need to regulate, structure and certify this procedure.

Summary

Measure L: Network of experts to support executive over-sightIn this context, the establishment of an academically coor-dinated and structurally reinforced national network of ex-perts to protect ancient cultural objects from illicit traffick-ing is recommended. The establishment of such a network of experts would not only make Germany a role model in the fulfilment of the UNESCO Convention of 1970, it would also play an urgent, critical role in the effective implemen-tation of the Cultural Property Protection Act. In the spirit of the sustainable utilisation of federal and Land research funding, the network of experts could continue seamless-ly where the transdisciplinary ILLICID project’s preliminary efforts left off. The establishment of a national network of experts to protect ancient cultural objects from illicit traf-ficking would provide sustainable scholarly support to the federal and Land authorities (primarily the Federal Crimi-nal Police Office, the Land police offices, the customs au-thorities, the Land cultural authorities, public prosecution offices, trade supervisory authorities) in addressing the il-licit trafficking in ancient cultural objects, and particularly in enforcing the Cultural Property Protection Act.

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1.1 Research questions and objectives

The ILLICID project (»Analysing the Dark Figure as a Basis for Countering and Preventing Crime Using the Example of Ancient Cultural Property«; 2015–2018 period), which received financial support from the Federal Ministry of Ed-ucation and Research (BMBF) under the »Research for Civ-il Security« programme (call for proposals »Civil Security: Protection against Organised Crime«), had the objective to develop and pilot scholarly methods enabling the identifi-cation and description of characteristic traits of the opaque zone as it relates to the illicit trafficking in cultural property in Germany.

For the purposes of this study, the opaque zone was defined as the portion of publicly visible trade in ancient cultural objects whose legality or illegality is not readily distinguishable on the basis of public and freely accessi-ble information (e. g. auction catalogues, online platforms or trade fairs). The project set out to evaluate its working hypothesis that the trade in ancient cultural objects, as with uncertified diamonds, is characterised by an absent or opaque distinction between the legal and illegal seg-ments.13 The demonstrably legal market segment consists of ancient cultural property with export licenses or another verifiable purchase pre-dating the entry into force of the applicable provisions under national or international law (see Figure 1).

Objects can be clearly identified as illegal for trade if they are inauthentic, reported as stolen or listed on an official register as missing cultural objects. If an ancient culture ob-ject originated from an illegal excavation, for example – as with the uncertified diamond trade – its inclusion on an official national register cannot be presumed. Rather, by its very nature, illegally excavated cultural property categori-cally cannot be recorded in official registers. Such objects and all others without meaningful accompanying docu-mentation verifiably demonstrating their legal provenance and export cannot be clearly and readily classified within one of the two segments of trade (legal or illicit). As long as cultural objects, which are generally subject to strong legal trading restrictions or bans, can be placed on the market and sold without official documentation demonstrating the

1 Facts Concerning the Trade in Ancient Cultural Property in Germany

legality of the objects for sale, it will remain impossible for consumers to make a reliable distinction between legally traded and illicitly trafficked cultural objects. They cannot but worry that the cultural objects for sale might include inauthentic objects or artefacts from illegal excavations, for example.

In addition to piloting methods, as an exploratory pilot study to illustrate the possibilities, the ILLICID project also systematically collected data on publicly traded objects, the volume of objects, the stakeholders, existing networks and the stakeholders’ trading habits.14 Moreover, the project examined the extent to which it is possible, on the basis of such data, to draw reliable conclusions about the potential for profiteering and money laundering by means of illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects. The transdisciplinary project implemented these tasks in reference to ancient cultural property from the eastern Mediterranean region because recent political developments in this region have resulted in a significant rise in illegal excavations and loot-ing of archaeological sites and museums.15 In this context, one can hypothesise an increase in the volume of objects from this region entering the market because the trade in ancient cultural objects is also dependent on a reciprocal relationship between supply and demand.

1.2 Project design and methods

To achieve the research project’s methodological and the-matic objectives, a transdisciplinary project design was developed in which both academic and non-academic stakeholders collaborated and contributed their respective knowledge and skills. The consortium partners were antiq-uities experts (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), survey researchers (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) and information technologists (Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology, SIT). These were supported by associated part-ners from the spheres of academia, politics, risk prevention and law enforcement.16

13 Wehinger, 2011.14 This was first conducted as part of the ILLICID project, and was cor-roborated by a study by the European Commission on the same subject. See Brodie et al., 2019, p. 162.15 See, for example, the satellite data of the EAMENA project (Endan-gered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa) or the monthly reports (from 2014 to 2018) of the American Schools of Oriental Re-search Cultural Heritage Initiatives (ASOR CHI) project. 16 The Federal Foreign Office (Berlin), the Federal Government Com-missioner for Culture and the Media (Berlin, Bonn), the Federal Criminal

Police Office (Wiesbaden), the Austrian Criminal Police Office and Securi-ty Academy (Vienna, Austria), the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), the German Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Heidelberg Centre for Cultural Herit-age (HCCH) – Heidelberg University, the Criminal Police Office of the Land of Hesse, Harz University of Applied Sciences Department of Public Man-agement, the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Verband Unab-hängiger Kunstsachverständiger (League of Independent Art Specialists, Stuttgart), ZEIS Centre for European and International Studies in Criminal Law (Osnabrück) and the Customs Criminological Office (Cologne).

Facts Concerning the Trade in Ancient Cultural Property in Germany

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The antiquities experts of the Stiftung Preußischer Kul-turbesitz identified and analysed relevant objects being traded in the public eye and classified the listings on the basis of a criteria catalogue developed and tested during the project (Table 1). Around 386,500 lots from 197 ven-dors in Germany were viewed on websites, at auctions, in printed catalogues, at trade shows and in retail shops in a systematic market analysis from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2017. As a prerequisite for the project to document a rel-evant lot being offered for sale – i. e., ancient cultural ob-jects from the eastern Mediterranean region (ACOM) – the vendor had to have a location in Germany. The evaluation was based on the publicly accessible information from the vendor that would also be available to potential consum-ers. Furthermore, follow-up investigations were conducted in conversations with dealers, during on-the-ground re-search and as part of the analysis of marketplaces accessi-ble on the internet.

sessment could not be conducted for ancient coins from the eastern Mediterranean region as part of the ILLICID project.

The project documented all ancient cultural objects that were academically assessed to originate from the eastern Mediterranean region with high likelihood. In the frame-work of the ILLICID project, this collective designation en-compassed the present-day countries of Greece (Aegean islands only), Cyprus, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Iran (see the blue area of Map 1). The objects considered project-relevant and subject to schol-arly assessment included all material heritage – excluding coins17 – from the eastern Mediterranean region, from the earliest Palaeolithic artefacts to the Fall of the Roman Empire in the late fourth century AD. The Sasanid culture, which began around 224 AD, was excluded for practical reasons. The classification was carried out by experts spe-cialised in Egyptology and Classical and Near Eastern/Mid-dle Eastern/West Asian Archaeology.

For all objects, all information on provenance in the corresponding catalogues and publications was examined for plausibility and verifiability. Additionally, in each case,


Figure 1 Diagram of the opaque zone of the trade in ancient cultural objects

17 Due to their extreme numerousness and the relatively moderate staffing of the antiquities experts’ sub-project, a systematic expert as-

17

Map 1 Project-relevant countries of origin for ancient cultural objects

the project team members verified that each ancient cul-tural object was neither an item registered as stolen from a museum in the INTERPOL Works of Art database,18 nor cul-tural property confiscated during Nazi persecution or taken away as a result of war, categories registered in the Lost Art Database.19 In order to clarify the authenticity of the ob-jects on offer, the antiquities experts searched the relevant specialist literature for comparable finds from documented archaeological contexts. The objects offered for sale were compared to those archaeologically documented finds, and were classified and dated accordingly. Using a five-lev-el criteria catalogue developed as part of the project, the provenance information and the object’s authenticity were rated, documented and then statistically analysed.

As part of their sub-project, the survey researchers at the GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences conduct-ed a systematic anonymous survey of various stakeholder groups. This survey was designed specifically for the pro-ject and was piloted in a pre-test stage. Dealers, auction houses, museums, foundations and collections, experts, appraisers, restorers and investigatory agencies were sur-veyed about their experiences with the trade and the vol-ume of objects.20 Private collectors, who are important stakeholders in the market, could not be surveyed in the

framework of the project because it would have required disproportionally high effort to identify and contact such a specialised and heterogeneous group.

The goal was to gain insight into the scope, network structures, sales channels and assessments of individuals involved in the trade. Aside from the aspect of illicit traf-ficking, much more general information was gathered on the various target groups within the framework of the pro-ject. Above all, the analysis of the survey brought to light many important avenues for developing policy recommen-dations in regard to the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany (see Part 2).

As part of their sub-project, academics at the Fraun-hofer Institute for Secure Information Technology studied the extent to which investigatory agencies and experts in the field could in future be assisted by information and communications technology (ICT) in their efforts to capture and assess cultural objects that are visibly traded in public.

In this endeavour, they sought primarily to address three focus areas: making monitoring less time-consuming, achieving persistent access of fast-moving online business and supporting law enforcement agencies, Land cultur-al authorities and customs authorities. The context is the comparatively large quantity of ancient cultural objects being traded in Germany21 and the demand for academ-

18 INTERPOL, Stolen works of art database, n. d.19 German Lost Art Foundation, n. d.20 Fahrenholz, Götze, Pötzschke and Biedinger, 2020a.

21 This applies not least to ancient coins from the eastern Mediterra-nean region, which could not be systematically and expertly evaluated as part of the ILLICID project due to their numerousness (see footnote 17).


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Figure 2 Diagram of data capturing and retention strategy © Fraunhofer SIT

ically sound, rapidly available preliminary assessments of objects.

To that end, they created a technical plan and imple-mented a strategy for recording and retaining data on po-tentially pertinent internet listings of objects (see Figure 2). They also developed a pattern-recognition feature for such listings (see Figure 3).

This work primarily focused on broad-scale automation of time-intensive procedural steps, such as identifying and retaining relevant listings, tasks which had typically been performed manually in the past. To that end, demonstra-tion prototypes were developed for crawlers, persistent data retention, image recognition, and an app, which all demonstrate the potential of technological options for monitoring and preliminarily assessing ancient cultural ob-jects both on the market and in cargo (see Measure K).

First, in cooperation with the antiquities experts on the project team, potential sources for relevant object listings were identified. There was discussion of the foundational criteria based upon which project-relevant listings could be identified. On the basis of the resulting data, the strategy for data capturing and retention was drafted and imple-mented (see Figure 2).

In addition, on the basis of a sample quantity of manually retrieved listings of relevant objects and the identification criteria discussed previously, various analytical procedures

for textual and image-based pattern recognition were in-vestigated for suitability, selected, refined and implement-ed. AI technologies were used for the analysis of the cap-tured text (specifically, natural language processing [NLP] technologies) and image content (machine learning [ML], especially deep learning [DL] using neural networks) to quantify the similarities between known relevant object listings and new, unknown listings in order to enable the generation of automated assessments on this basis.

For the sake of using the database as an information source on mobile devices, e. g. on the ground at customs, a mobile app was developed (see Figure 3).

The emphasis was placed on Android operating sys-tems, which is the most widespread operating system for mobile devices with a current market share of approx-imately 80 %. The mobile app was developed by cosee GmbH on a subcontract from Fraunhofer SIT. The develop-ment process required an exchange of information regard-ing the documentation of the interface collection (appli-cation programming interface, or API) because the mobile app and the individual framework components were also to use the API for data exchange. During app development, there was also an emphasis on data minimisation because the app needed to be fully functional even under condi-tions with slow mobile data transfer speeds and with no Wifi connection.


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Figure 3 Diagram of image similarity search via mobile app © Fraunhofer SIT

1.3 Overview of key findings

For the very first time, the ILLICID project has given system-atic insight into the trade in ancient cultural property from the eastern Mediterranean region (ACOM) in Germany. Based on this foundation of scientific data, further hypoth-eses can be extrapolated with reference to both the trade in ancient cultural property itself and measures to prevent illicit trafficking in cultural objects in Germany and there-fore improvements to consumer protection (see Part 2).

1.3.1 Volume of trade and object categories

Using the stated methods of market analysis by antiquities experts, the project made the preliminary determination that the volume of trading in such objects was consider-ably higher than had been anticipated during the project design stage.22 Among the total of 386,500 objects on offer that were researched and viewed over a 24-month period, 3,741 lots comprising 6,133 ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region (ACOMs) were desig-nated to be project-relevant. Among those, the scholars classified 2,387 objects (38.9 %) as being highly likely to

have originated in Iraq or Syria. Of the 289 stakeholders and platforms viewed by the antiquities experts, 197 of which were regularly assessed, 90 offered ACOMs for sale in Germany. Among those, more than 65 % of the objects were on offer in locations in southern Germany. However, a steady shift to internet-based trading was observed.23 In addition to the individual websites of established traders, auction houses support live online bidding. On larger In-ternet marketplaces, both auction houses and private in-dividuals posted objects for sale whose authenticity and provenance – i. e., documentation of a legal trade chan-nel – were generally not verifiable based on the publicly provided information.

More than half the objects were for sale as aggregate lots (n = 3,375). This significantly impeded the analysis of individual objects and the provenance examination re-quired under the Cultural Property Protection Act (KGSG) of 31 July 2016 (entry into force on 6 August 2016) because in most cases the postings were merely accompanied by photographs of full lots and unspecific provenance informa-tion about the objects for sale. Far from being reserved for groups of pottery shards or fragments of other object types, aggregate lots were also used for groups of stone statuary heads or terracotta pieces that – as in specific sample cases, see Table 4 – could fetch five-figure sums on the interna-tional market.24 However, the valuation of ancient cultural objects solely on the basis of their sale prices generally does

22 In the process of planning an exploratory pilot study, one source of methodological difficulty is that core traits of the project design (e. g. the scope of the object categories to be analysed, the required skills and re-sources, the methods and tools to be deployed) cannot draw on existing, systematically determined data and facts. Thus, the definition of these traits can only ever be based on hypotheses. In planning the ILLICID pro-ject, based on the stringent legal import and export restrictions or bans applying to ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean re-gion, it was assumed that no more than 1,000 pertinent objects – ex-

cluding ancient coins – would be identified in public trading in Germany during the project period. In fact, over the course of just 24 months, this number was exceeded more than sixfold (6,133). 23 On a similar note, see Brodie, 2017.24 In this regard, it is interesting to note the following due diligence guideline from the International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA), 2018, Article 4: »Pay particular attention in the case of any item offered for sale where the asking price does not equate to its market value«.


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not do justice to their significance, for illegal excavations ir-revocably destroy the archaeological context irrespective of the monetary value of individual cultural objects.25

The listings of objects from the West Asian cultures of Antiquity, which were presented as individual items, fall within nearly all categories of objects (see Figure 4). Among the Greek and Roman cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region, (glass) vessels were predominant with 67 %, whereas among the Egyptian objects »artwork (3D)« including »ushabti« and »garments/jewellery« includ-ing »scarabs« were apparent focuses of trade. The majority of the listings concerned relatively small, portable objects.

1.3.2 Provenance

The provenance statements regarding objects for sale provided to prospective buyers are also central to the an-tiquities experts’ sub-project in its efforts to describe and expertly evaluate the opaque zone. The verifiability of these provenance statements was assessed according to a five-level criteria catalogue developed as part of the project (see Table 1).

This rating system was based on five different nation-al and international legal standards and agreements, each containing different threshold dates:

¾ German Cultural Property Protection Act26 • Threshold of 26 April 2007 for claims for return by signatory states to the UNESCO Convention of 1970, or • Threshold of 31 December 1992 for claims of return by EU member states

¾ EU Regulation regarding cultural property from Iraq27: threshold of 6 August 1990 (export from Iraq)

¾ EU regulation regarding cultural property from Syria28: threshold of 9 May 2011 (export from Syria)

¾ UNESCO Convention29 of 1970: threshold 14 November 1970

¾ Laws of the countries of origin30: Earliest year of introduction of a ban on exporting ancient cultural property without an export permit, see Map 2

This assessment categorised listings based on the variabili-ty and detail of their documented provenance from before these threshold dates.31

The five-level criteria catalogue that was drafted and successfully piloted during the project can also be used in future as an indicator of the quality of published object bi-ographies (see Measure F).

Figure 4 Object categories of the ancient cultural objects listed for sale individually (WA = West Asian cultural objects; GR = Classical, i.e. Graeco-Roman cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region; and EGY, ancient Egyptian cultural objects)

25 See Brodie et al., 2019, p. 78; see also Hilgert, 2016.26 See 1.3.2.1 »Assessment of provenance statements according to the German Cultural Property Protection Act«.27 See 1.3.2.2 »Assessment of provenance statements according to the EU regulations regarding Iraq and Syria«.28 See 1.3.2.2 »Assessment of provenance statements according to the EU regulations regarding Iraq and Syria«.29 See 1.3.2.3 »Assessment of provenance statements according to the UNESCO Convention of 1970«.

30 See 1.3.2.4 »Assessment of provenance statements according to the respective laws of the countries of origin«. 31 When the date of purchase was listed as a range of dates (for exam-ple, »acquired between 2000 and 2010«) the earlier of the listed dates (i. e. 2000 in this example) was used to classify the object in relation to the respective threshold date.

Architectural component

Artwork (2D)

Artwork (3D)

Vessel

Tool

Seals and sealing

Interior furniture/decoration

Clothing/jewellery

Small find/other

Writing

Human remains and paraphernalia


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1.3.2.1 Assessment of provenance statements according to the German Cultural Property Protection Act

Under the Cultural Property Protection Act, legally speci-fied due diligence requirements must be met before plac-ing cultural property on the market, especially when listing an object or executing a sale.32 In regard to the commercial trade in cultural property, the law stipulates in part that a cultural object’s provenance is to be examined and records

5 > Verifiable provenance before the threshold date

√ Verifiable name and year specified (e. g. publication with photo)√ Provenance extends back to at least before the respective threshold date√ Was located outside the country of origin before the respective threshold date Or√ Export permit from the country of origin including verifiable, clear identification (e. g. photograph)

ExampleCatalogue from Bloggs Auction House, in Germany before respective threshold date, lot 123 [with photo]

4 > Not verifiable, but detailed provenance before threshold date

√ Not verifiable provenance (e. g. publication without photo) √ Full name of previous owner specified √ Provenance extends back to at least before the respective threshold date√ Was located outside the country of origin before the respective threshold date

Or√ Export permit from the country of origin without a verifiable, clear identification

ExampleJoe Bloggs Collection, in Germany before the respective threshold date

3 > Not verifiable, not detailed provenance before threshold date

√ Not verifiable provenance (e. g. no name specified or name ambiguously abbreviated) √ Provenance extends back to at least before the respective threshold date√ Was located outside the country of origin before the respective threshold date

ExampleCollection (J. B.), in Germany before respective threshold date

2 > Not verifiable, not detailed provenance, threshold date not satisfied

√ No name specified√ No information before respective threshold date and/or no referenced locale outside the country of origin

ExampleBloggs collection before threshold date [country missing]; private collection in England [date missing or after threshold]

1 > Absent, contradictory or falsified provenance

A) No information on provenance B) Demonstrable origin from museum or warehouse (stolen goods)C) Contradiction in statements, false references

Table 1 Criteria catalogue for assessing statements about provenance

32 Act on the Protection of Cultural Property, 2016; see also Federal Gov-ernment Commissioner for Culture and the Media, 2017.

must be kept of the examination’s individual steps and out-come. Granted, the law does not include a legal obligation to publish these records in an auction catalogue entry or as part of an Internet listing of a cultural object. However, because presenting a maximally transparent chain of prov-enance has the effect of boosting value and therefore the potential to enhance the sale, there is generally no valid reason to conceal available information about an object’s origins.


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Table 2 Findings of categorisation of provenance according to each regulation

German Cultural Property Protection ActThreshold date 26 Apr 2007 for UNESCO Convention states or threshold date 31 Dec 1992 for EU member states (n = 6,133)

EU regulation on Iraq Threshold date 6 Aug 1990(n = 2,387)

EU regulation on SyriaThreshold date 9 May 2011(n = 2,387)

UNESCO Conven-tion Threshold date 14 Nov 1970(n = 6,133)

Laws of countries of originThreshold dates, see Map 2(n = 6,133)

5 > Verifiable prov-enance before the threshold dates

2.1 % (n = 128) 0.4 % (n = 10) 9.6 % (n = 228) 0.2 % (n = 14) 0 (n = 0)

4 > Not verifi-able, but detailed provenance before threshold dates

16.9 % (n = 1,039) 10.2 % (n = 243) 12.4 % (n = 297) 10.1 % (n = 621) 1.4 % (n = 86)

3 > Not verifi-able, not detailed provenance before threshold dates

38.1 % (n = 2,337) 33.2 % (n = 792) 39.9 % (n = 953) 16.7 % (n = 1,023)

0.1 % (n = 9)

2 > Not verifi-able, not detailed provenance after threshold dates

31.9 % (n = 1,958) 48.1 % (n = 1,149) 30 % (n = 716) 62.0 % (n = 3,804)

87.5 % (n = 5,367)

1 > Absent, contra-dictory or falsified provenance

10.9 % (n = 671) 8.1 % (n = 193) 8.1 % (n = 193) 10.9 % (n = 671) 10.9 % (n = 671)

Map 2 Project-relevant countries of origin and earliest year of introduction of a ban on exporting ancient cultural property without an export permit


23

According to the vendors’ own descriptions, barely more than half (57.1 %) of the 6,133 ancient cultural ob-jects from the eastern Mediterranean region documented for Germany during the investigation period were offered for sale with a reference to export from the respective countries of origin before the threshold dates relevant in Germany under EU law (31 December 1992, entry into force of the de minimis provisions of the Council Regulation on the return of cultural goods across the European Union) or under international law (26 April 2007, entry into force for Germany of the UNESCO Convention of 1970 under in-ternational law33) (»3–5« ratings; see Figure 5).34 For the remaining 42.9 %, there were contradictory provenance statements or none at all regarding the time before these threshold dates (assessment categories »1–2«).

The statements made by the vendors regarding export before the relevant threshold dates (57.1 %) were distin-guished by their verifiability:

A mere 2.1 % of project-relevant cultural objects trad-ed in Germany could be verified as belonging unambigu-ously and objectively to the clear zone based on checking (auction) catalogues or archives (category »5«; n = 128).

For 16.9 %, the vendors specified details such as the full name of the previous owner before the threshold dates (category »4«, n = 1,039). Of the people named in this group, 67 % were confirmed in digital or analogue archives as being professional trading stakeholders or collectors. It could not be verified whether the specific ancient cultural property had in fact been in their possession.

However, the largest category, with 38.1 %, comprised ancient cultural property with a vague, unverifiable prov-enance along the lines of »European collection from the 1990s« (category »3«, n = 2,337).

According to the vendor’s statements, an »old bill of sale« available was for only 36 of the 6,133 objects (0.59 %). Al-legedly, 51 of the 6,133 ancient cultural objects had export permits (0.83 %, see Figure 6). However, the problem with these export permits was that they usually only included a summarised list of cultural objects and did not contain any photographs for clear identification, meaning that once again, distinctions had to be drawn based on verifiability, market and country of origin.

¾ Eleven of the 51 export permits had been issued in France or Austria and thus did not originate from a country of origin for cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region.

¾ One export permit originated from Egypt as the country of origin. However, the information on the provenance

documentation was so contradictory that the provenance had to be categorised as »1 > contradictory«.

¾ For 39 items for sale with an export permit from the State of Israel, a distinction must be drawn between cultural property that was expertly assessed as possibly having originated from Israel originally and cultural property for which Israel was merely a country of tran- sit or the market country.

• There were 23 cultural objects possessing export permits from Israel according to the vendors’ statements and also originated from this state’s territory according to the expert assessment. • There were 16 cultural objects that, according to an expert assessment, originated not from Israel, but from Turkey, Iran or Egypt with a likelihood verging on certainty.

33 UNESCO, 1970.34 The threshold dates mentioned in the Cultural Property Protection Act are relevant to the question of whether a country of origin can exercise a legal claim to the return of cultural property as well as the question of whether it was unlawful to import a cultural object to Germany after the Act entered into force. However, the threshold dates based on which a le-gal claim is valid in Germany do not, per se, temporally limit the obligation to check provenance. According to section 42 (1) no. 3 of the Cultural Prop-

erty Protection Act, commercial vendors must »examine the provenance of the cultural property«; and according to section 40 (1) of the same act, there is a general ban on placing cultural property on the market if it was declared missing or unlawfully excavated.35 For the sake of clarity, the authors chose not to include more than one decimal place. Because of rounding, some of the pie charts only add up to 99.9 %.

Figure 5 Provenance evaluated according to the regulations of the German Cultural Property Protection Act based on the provenance statements published by the vendors35

1 Absent, contradictory or falsified provenance2 Not verifiable, not detailed provenance, threshold date not satisfied3 Not verifiable, not detailed provenance before threshold date4 Not verifiable, but detailed provenance before threshold date5 Verifiable provenance before threshold date


Market country France or Austria

Market country Israel (originated in Egypt, Iran, Turkey)

Country of origin Israel

Country of origin Egypt

Figure 6 Export permits during the investigation period

24

Figure 7 Provenance evaluated according to the EU regulation on cultural property from Iraq

36 Syria: Council Regulation (EU) no. 1332/2013, Article 1, no. 4, amending Regulation (EU) no. 36/2012, Article 22; Iraq: Council Regula-tion (EC) no. 1210/2003, Article 3; Council Regulation (EC) no. 2465/96.

1 Absent, contradictory or falsified provenance2 Not verifiable, not detailed provenance, threshold date not satisfied3 Not verifiable, not detailed provenance before threshold date4 Not verifiable, but detailed provenance before threshold date5 Verifiable provenance before the threshold date

Because the allegedly available bills of sale and export per-mits were not viewable by consumers and were therefore not verifiable either, objects with an export permit from their country of origin were categorised as »4 > not verifia-ble, but detailed«. Cultural objects that had export permits from the market country but not from their country of or-igin were classified in the categories »2–4« depending on the dates specified and where they fell in relation to the applicable threshold dates.

1.3.2.2 Assessment of provenance statements according to the EU regulations regarding Iraq and Syria

Cultural objects originating from the countries of Iraq and Syria constitute a legal special case. They have been spe-cially protected by two regulations that are directly appli-cable in all EU member states.36 According to the burden of proof provisions arising from these EU regulations, the importer or vendor of such objects must prove, in case of doubt, that the artefacts were located outside their coun-tries of origin before the threshold dates stipulated in the respective regulations.

Of the 6,133 objects in the observation period, the an-tiquities experts ascertained that 2,387 were highly likely to have originated in Iraq or Syria. That corresponds to 38.9 % of the full volume of project-relevant objects considered. In some cases, it is difficult for antiquities experts to defin-itively narrow down an object’s origins to the territory of a contemporary state such as Syria or Iraq. Ancient empires stretched far beyond modern national borders. Objects and trade in the ancient world moved independently of today’s borders. For this reason the 2,387 ancient cultural objects assessed by scholars as being highly likely to have originated in Iraq and/or Syria were all examined based on the threshold dates of both the Iraq and Syria regulations:

¾ 6 August 1990 for Iraq ¾ 9 May 2011 for Syria

The verifiability assessment for the threshold of 6 August 1990, derived from the EU regulation regarding Iraq, pro-duced the following results: Only ten cultural objects (0.4 %) were verifiably on the market before that threshold date (»5«). For 10.2 % of the objects, there was at least one detailed provenance (»4«) before the threshold dates; and for 33.2 % a non-detailed provenance (»3«). For the majority (56.2 %) of the 2,387 cultural objects that potentially originated in Iraq, it was not specified that they were located or acquired outside the borders of the Iraqi state before the threshold date of the corresponding EU regulation (categories »1–2«, see Figure 7).

The verifiability assessment for the threshold of 9 May 2011, derived from the EU regulation regarding Syria, pro-duced the following results:

9.6 % of the ancient Syrian cultural objects offered for sale in Germany during the investigation period demonstrably transferred ownership outside the country before the out-break of military conflict in 2011 (»5«, see Figure 8). Based on the vendors’ statements, 12.4 % of the objects could be associated with named collections (»4«), whereas 39.9 % were described as belonging to unnamed collections out-side Syria (»3«). For 38.1 % of the potentially Syrian ancient objects, statements about the time before the threshold date of 9 May 2011 were missing or contradictory (»1–2«).

This is an alarming finding given the strict import, ex-port and trade restrictions that apply to ancient cultural objects from these two countries due to the EU regulations throughout the European Union as well as in light of the ongoing, extensive destruction and looting of ancient cul-tural property in these countries. Indeed, this finding can be juxtaposed against the results of the stakeholder survey conducted as part of the social science sub-project (see Fig-ure 9). When asked where they had acquired an ACOM, the vast majority of dealers and auction houses specified Germany and neighbouring European countries. However, it is noteworthy that between 2014 and 2017, six of the 16 dealers and auction houses participating in the survey conducted in the first half of 2017 directly sourced objects from Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq or Iran despite long-standing strict export prohibitions on cultural objects in these countries.


25

Figure 8 Provenance evaluated according to the EU regulation on cultural property from Syria

Figure 9 GESIS survey of dealers and auction houses about objects’ origins © GESIS

37 UNESCO, 1970. 38 For an overview of the ratification process, see UNESCO, Ratifica-tion, n. d. 39 International Council of Museums (ICOM), 2004. The code of ethics was unanimously adopted on 4 November 1986 at the 15th ICOM gen-

eral assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and amended on 6 July 2001 at the 20th ICOM general assembly in Barcelona, Spain, then revised on 8 October 2004 at the 21st ICOM general assembly in Seoul, South Korea.

Convention of 1970 is not self-executing in the contracting states; it is only binding on the contracting states after be-ing implemented in a given country’s national laws. It was ratified and implemented in national law at two speeds: countries where protected cultural property often origi-nates such as Mexico, Iraq or Italy, which have always been particularly hard hit by looting, reacted promptly. Coun-tries that are more often regarded as market states of pro-tected cultural objects were hesitant at first to implement the Convention.38 Germany only ratified it on 30 November 2007 as the 115th contracting state.

Thus, the Convention’s date of 1970 is not legally bind-ing. Nevertheless, as an ethical principle not to accession any ancient cultural objects without provenance before this date, the year holds relevance for museums and other insti-tutions under the Code of Ethics of the International Council of Museums (ICOM),39 which is why cultural objects offered for sale in Germany are also investigated in reference to this date.

Only 0.2 % – 14 – of the 6,133 project-relevant ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region were demonstrably located outside their country of origin before 14 November 1970 (»5«, see Figure 10). The prove-nance of the other 6,119 cultural objects traded in Germa-ny (99.8 %) was not verifiably legal. For 10.1 % of the ob-jects, at least some details of prior ownership before 1970 were listed (n = 621, »4«). Another 16.7 % had been held before 1970 by collections outside the country of origin that were not unambiguously identifiable (n = 1,023, »3«).

The remaining 72.9 % of the ancient cultural objects in-vestigated were only put on the market after 14 November 1970 according to the vendors’ statements.



1.3.2.3 Assessment of provenance statements according to the UNESCO Convention of 1970

The UNESCO Convention of 14 November 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Im-port, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property sets the standard in international cultural property protec-tion due to its far-reaching acceptance by 140 contracting states (entry into force on 24 April 1972).37

For the first time, with the UNESCO Convention, nu-merous states agreed on a joint declaration to protect hu-manity’s cultural heritage even in peacetime. The UNESCO

Figure 10 Provenance evaluated according to UNESCO Convention of 1970


26

1.3.2.4 Assessment of provenance statements according to the respective laws of the countries of origin

The UNESCO Convention of 1970 obliges contracting states to pass national laws that regulate the export of cultural property and institute export permits for the legal export of protected cultural property. Conversely, the contracting state’s own jurisdiction is meant to treat the import of ir-regularly exported protected cultural property from anoth-er state as illegitimate; claims for return are to be mutually recognised. With this, the country of origins’ then-existing provisions on the export of cultural property were first rec-ognised on an international level, often decades after they had entered into force. The principle, under international law, prohibiting retro-activity applies here. That means that an obligation to return cultural property only applies to a given contracting state as of the date it ratified the Con-vention.

Even ancient cultural property that was first placed on the market before 1970 must be accompanied by an export permit from the country of origin to be accepted as legal for trading by that state, or must have been demonstrably located or transported abroad before the (earliest) export provisions entered into force. The export of ancient cultural property was first prohibited in 1834 in Greece and in 1869 in the Ottoman Empire, which encompassed a large part of the project-relevant countries of origin (see Map 2).40 Le-gally protected cultural property was only permitted to be taken abroad with the written permission of the govern-ment. After the end of Ottoman rule, the individual succes-sor states passed their own laws to regulate or prohibit the export of cultural property.41

None of the ancient cultural objects traded in Germany during the observation period verifiably satisfied the (ear-liest) export provisions in the countries of origin, i. e. cat-egory »5«; see Figure 11. Only 1.4 % (86) of the 6,133 ob-jects investigated could be classified in category »4« and either were allegedly located in Europe before the respec-tive dates of the export prohibition or possessed an export permit from the country of origin (without photographic documentation of the object). Nine ancient cultural objects were accompanied by an unverifiable, not detailed prov-enance (category »3«). The vast majority of the objects in the investigation period – 98.5 % – did not possess any provenance that satisfied the (earliest) legal provisions of the countries of origin (»1–2«).

1.3.3 Authenticity

The ILLICID project systematically investigated the extent to which it is possible to assess ACOMs’ authenticity based on the publicly available information provided by the vendors. The precision, transparency and verifiability of the state-ments made by the vendors played a central role in that investigation. These statements must make an object’s au-thenticity reliably and authoritatively perceptible, even for laypeople.

Inauthentic objects might be copies, casts, imitations or pastiches. Distinctions should be drawn between various deception techniques: copies, casts, and imitations hew fairly closely to ancient models, whereas pastiches com-bine unrelated ancient elements in the same object. The quality of the forgeries ranges widely, spanning all the way from poor imitations made of cheap materials to painstak-ingly designed pieces that were obviously fabricated with considerable specialist knowledge of antiquities. This latter group can at times be difficult to identify as forgeries, even for experts.42

For all the 6,133 objects classified as relevant to the re-search project, the statements made by the vendors sug-gested that said objects were authentic ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region. The expert assessment of authenticity was conducted based on the in-formation and photographs provided by the vendors. To this end, comparison objects from research excavations were researched and the listings were classified and assessed in analogy to those published cultural objects from document-ed archaeological contexts. The classification process was completed for 4,149 objects (67.6 % of the project-relevant

40 The export of cultural property was first prohibited by the Ottoman Empire in March 1869, and the law was amended on 24 March 1874. This law applied in the territory of the subsequent states of Iraq, Israel, Jor-dan, Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus. See the French translation, Aristarchis, 1874. See also Fless, 2018, p. 12.

41 For detailed information, see the website of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Staateninformationen, n. d., and UNESCO, UNESCO database of national cultural heritage laws, n. d. 42 Typical examples of such forgeries can be found, for example, in Muscarella, 2000.

Figure 11 Provenance evaluated according to the earliest law of the respective country of origin



27

objects).43 The authenticity of 24.2 % of the total volume could not be assessed for reasons of time and workload. For more than 6 % of them, there was no available photo-graphic documentation at all on which to base an even su-perficial authenticity assessment. 1.8 % of the listings were falsely claimed by the vendors to be cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region (n = 110). In fact, the scholarly analysis indicated that these objects originated from other, mostly prehistoric European cultures. Whether these objects listed with misleading information were au-thentic pieces could not be determined in the framework of the ILLICID project.

For the sake of these assessments, a numeric point system was developed to quantify scholars’ preliminary assessment – which is often intuitive and draws on long experience with cultural objects, and can be a first indica-tion of a presumptive forgery – using transparent, objective criteria to make the classification comprehensible for lay-people as well. The points were assigned in four categories – »material«, »technique«, »style« and »form« – in one of six ranks from zero to five, and then added together (see Table 3: Criteria catalogue for authenticity assessment and results).

In the »material« category, the researchers assessed whether the material used matches the epoch in which the object allegedly originated, i. e. whether the material was available and/or typical. In the »technique« catego-ry, traces of production and processing were assessed in the context of the time period of origin. The »style« and »form« categories relate to an object’s style and its orna-mentations or geometry. The object’s assessment along these categories expresses the degree to which the object could be integrated into the known stylistic and formal rep-ertoire of its alleged period of origin and the respective cul-tural-historical context. The higher the point total assigned to an object, the likelier it is to be authentic. If zero points were assigned in any category, the object was classified as »0 > certainly not authentic«, for example, if the object’s material was determined to be plastic.

In principle, from a scholarly perspective, an assess-ment of an ancient cultural object without a detailed, time-consuming physical inspection of the original, and solely based on the information published by a vendor, cannot be the basis of a final decision on the authentic-ity of the object in question. In some cases, indeed only a material-science investigation can help to clarify authen-ticity. This methodological restriction explains why objects’ authenticity was only very rarely categorised as »5 > very likely« (0.05 %) or »1 > very unlikely« (1.13 %). For three

objects, the photograph alone demonstrated without a doubt that the object was inauthentic (»0 > certainly not authentic«, 0.07 %).

Among the 4,149 alleged ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region for which a scholarly analysis was completed, only 24.44 % were »(very) likely authentic« (n = 1,014, »4–5«, shades of green, see Fig-ure 12 on the left) according to the authenticity assess-ments conducted by the ILLICID project. The authenticity of the remaining objects, despite scholarly expertise and intensive research, either could not be clarified given the information provided (63.1 %, n = 2,618, »3«, grey) or there was a suspicion of forgery (12.46 %, »0–2«, shades of red). For cultural objects from West Asian cultures, suspected forgeries were particularly frequent (26.17 %, »0–2«, see Figure 12, right).44

At times, a scholarly assessment of the authenticity of ancient objects can only be made on the basis of details and circumstantial evidence. For methodological reasons, the point system in Figure 13 was broken down into even smaller units, forming a ranking from »0« to »20« points as shown in Table 3. Again, the higher the number of points, the more likely the object is to be authentic. The advan-tage of this more nuanced point system is that it reduces the number of objects whose authenticity is questionable/unclear, whereas all other assessments already demon-strate trends based on whether an object is presumably

44 These figures and trends for allegedly ancient objects are corrobora-ted by INTERPOL statistics. A third of the archaeological objects confisca-ted in 2015–2016 at the borders of Turkey and Lebanon turned out to be forgeries. INTERPOL, 2019, p. 7.

43 The number of ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterra-nean region on the art market in Germany exceeded the object volume anticipated at the beginning of the project by more than sixfold. In additi-on, the information provided by the vendors is generally so meagre as to make investigating the authenticity of the objects in question extraordi-narily time-consuming. For this reason, not all objects’ authenticity could be investigated in the framework of the project.


Assessment(see Figure 12)

Number of points for material/tech-nique/style/form (see Figure 13)

Percent, numbern = 4,149 (ACOM)

5 > Authentic/au-thenticity very likely

20 points 0.05 %, n = 2

4 > Authenticity likely

19−15 points 24.39 %, n = 1,012

3 > Authenticity questionable/un-clear

14−10 points 63.1 %, n = 2,618

2 > Authenticity unlikely

9−5 points 11.26 %, n = 467

1 > Authenticity very unlikely

4 points 1.13 %, n = 47

0 > Certainly not authentic

3−0 points 0.07 %, n = 3

Table 3 Criteria catalogue for authenticity assessment and results

28

inauthentic – shades of red for a below-average numbers of points, »0–11« – or more likely to be authentic – shades of green for above-average numbers of points, »13–20«.

In regard to the objects assessed as part of the ILLICID pro-ject, it can be concluded in summary that, on the basis of an expert appraisal of a photograph, not quite one out of every two artefacts traded in Germany (43.72 %) could be designated as putatively authentic ancient cultural proper-ty from the eastern Mediterranean region (43.72 % with »13–20« points, Figure 13, left). For 22.64 %, the appraisal tended towards assuming that the object for sale was not authentic (»0–11« points). For another 33.62 % of the ob-jects analysed, the authenticity could not be conclusively resolved using the available information, even by an expert

in the field (»12« points). In other words, for more than half (56.3 %) of the alleged ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region analysed during the investigation period, the object’s authenticity as claimed by the prospective seller could not be confirmed from an expert’s perspective and must be called into doubt. Again, the listings from West Asian cultures have a significantly frequent (41.5 %) tendency to be rated below average and thus to be particularly subject to suspicions of forgery (»0–11« points, Figure 13, right).

The personal impressions of the experts and apprais-ers who participated in the social science sub-project’s stakeholder survey are another possible indication of the overall growing role of potential forgeries in the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany (see Figure 14).45 Only

45 Another survey with similar results was conducted for Brodie et al., 2019, p. 76 f.

Figure 12 Assessment of the presumed authenticity according to six categories (from »5 > very likely to be authentic« to »0 > certainly not authentic«). Objects (ACOMs) with completed scholarly analysis on the left; West Asian objects (WA) with completed scholarly analysis on the right

0 certainly not

1 very unlikely

2 unlikely

3 questionable/unclear

4 likely

5 very likely

0–34567891011

121314151617181920

Figure 13 Assessment of authenticity using a 20-point system (see Table 3); objects (ACOMs) with completed scholarly analysis on the left; West Asian objects (WA) with completed scholarly analysis on the right


29

one respondent was of the view that the number of pos-sible forgeries had decreased in the past five years (since 2010), whereas twelve people indicated that they had ob-served an increase in volume. However, the largest group of respondents indicated that the frequency had remained roughly steady.

1.3.4 Revenue and object movements

For only 3,245 (52.9 %) of the total 6,133 project-relevant ACOMs could the final sale price be determined at all on the basis of publicly available information (Figure 15). In total, these sales prices added up to € 1,693,674.00 not including surcharges and fees. Because this sum was cal-

Figure 14 GESIS survey of experts and appraisers about possible forgeries © GESIS


Figure 15 Distribution of starting and sale prices for ACOMs

culated for only a bit more than half of the objects that were categorised as project-relevant and sold on the pub-licly visible market during the investigation period, the to-tal revenue from ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region should be assumed to be consider-ably higher.46

It is striking that the majority of the listed prices (71 %) were less than € 1,000, of which 9.8 % were even below € 100. For only 13.9 % of objects was a minimum starting bid above € 1,000 required, a finding that is very notable given the cultural significance of ancient cultural objects and their wide-ranging legal protection on national and international levels. For 15 % of objects, the starting price in the fast-act-ing online marketplace could no longer be determined.

Furthermore, it is especially striking that, in Germany, the quality of the provenance does not correlate with the pe-cuniary proceeds. The »object biographies« of most (11) of the 15 objects sold with a starting and final price great-er than € 10,000 were neither detailed nor verifiable (»3 > Not verifiable, not detailed provenance before the thresh-old date of the Cultural Property Protection Act«). Only in two cases was the provenance verifiable (»5 > Verifiable provenance before the threshold date of the Cultural Prop-erty Protection Act«); in two further cases, the associated legal threshold dates were not even satisfied (»2 > Not ver-ifiable, not detailed provenance; threshold date of Cultural Property Protection Act not satisfied«). One explanation for this could be that, for ancient cultural objects, the quali-ty of a provenance is not and has not been the determining factor for an object’s market value in Germany, a situation that could particularly be attributed to consumers’ lack of awareness of and perceived accountability for the problem.

Overall, the proceeds for ancient cultural property on the international market seem to be higher on average than they are in Germany. In 2007, for example, – the 9 centime-tre tall »Guennol Lioness«, a limestone sculpture with doc-

46 Regarding »private sales«, see Brodie et al., 2019, p. 56 f.

30

umented provenance, was sold at Sotheby’s New York at the highest sale price ever recorded for a piece with origins in one of the ancient West Asian cultures: $ 57,161,000.47 The level of this sales price was justified not least by the piece’s well-documented provenance.

In the course of the ILLICID project, it was observed in several cases that project-relevant objects without trans-parent provenance were first traded in Germany before going on to be sold abroad at much higher prices (see Ta-ble 4).48 The increased prices were justified by export pa-pers from the EU or Germany and by the documented sale on the open market. In this way, ancient cultural objects shifted between different professional stakeholders on the national and international markets. The respective stop-overs added to the object’s existing itineraries and were added to the provenance statements without the desig-nation that the object originated from the »private col-lection« of another professional stakeholder.49 Germany is clearly serving here as a springboard market for ancient cultural property from the eastern Mediterranean region. An important area for future research would therefore be a systematic study of object movements from Germany to the international market.

1.3.5 Potential for money laundering

In addition to the destruction of cultural property during illegal excavations, the reception of trafficked goods, and the presumptive deception entailed by listing inauthen-

tic objects for sale, there are also suspected connections between the trade in ancient cultural objects and money laundering.50 Ancient cultural objects are considered a low-volatility investment, which can be financed using cash from non-transparent sources.

From an academic/scholarly vantage point, the possi-bility of money laundering using ancient cultural proper-ty cannot be ruled out; however, one cannot necessarily presume this about all ancient cultural objects traded. Still, several indications suggest that the risk of money launder-ing via the trade in ancient cultural objects must be taken very seriously. In recent years, high transaction volumes and rising prices have been observed at auctions.51 In addi-tion, a cultural object’s source – whether legal or illicit – is not readily apparent from looking at it. This is compound-ed by the commercial practice, observed in the framework of the ILLICID project, of not or not fully specifying prove-nance information when selling an object or concealing it beneath non-verifiable, sometimes obfuscating language.52 In addition, there is clearly often a lack of verifiable export permits and import documents, which would demonstrate orderly customs clearance from the responsible border control and customs authorities.53

The fact that the vast majority of ACOMs in Germa-ny analysed by specialists during the investigation period were able to be listed and sold without meaningful prov-enance statements clearly supports the hypothesis that ancient cultural objects are generally suitable as a medium for money laundering.

47 Lot 30 at Sotheby’s (5 December 2007). The Guennol lioness: Im-portant Egyptian, Classical and Western Asiatic antiquities [Auction cat-alogue]. New York.48 Regarding object movements, see Brodie et al., 2019, pp. 97–106 and 116–128.49 Regarding other provenance-cloaking techniques, see Brodie et al., 2019, p. 72.50 Roth, 2015; Wissenschaftliche Dienste des Deutschen Bundestages, 2016, pp. 8 f.; most recently corroborated by Brodie et al., 2019, pp. 99 f. and 110 f.; Fricke, 2019.

Object Country of origin

Starting price in Germany

Sale price in Germany

Stopover country

Stopover price in 2018 Period

Terracotta Iraq € 200 (in aggre-gate lot of 63 objects)

€ 260 USA $ 17,500(as individual item)

6 years

Idol Syria/Lebanon € 640 € 800 USA $ 2,400 1 yearAnimal figurine »Eastern

Mediterranean region«

€ 2,750 Unknown Spain Unknown (correctly listed for sale as Hallstatt culture, Europe)

2 years

Mummy mask Egypt € 480 € 1,200 USA $ 4,265 2 yearsAnimal figurine Egypt € 2,400 € 43,000 UK Price on request (from

£ 50,000 with this dealer)2 years

Table 4 Selected examples of object movements (not limited to the investigation period of the ILLICID project)

51 Interdepartmental Coordinating Group on Combating Money Laun-dering and the Financing of Terrorism (CGMF), 2015.52 See 1.3.2 »Provenance«.53 See 1.3.2.1 »Assessment of provenance statements according to the German Cultural Property Protection Act«.


31

1.3.6 Potential for financing terrorist activities and armed conflicts via illicit trafficking in cultural property

Scarcely has any topic prompted more controversial dis-cussion in the art market and the political sphere than the supposition that looted cultural property could be used to finance terrorist activities.54 At minimum, there is firm ev-idence that the so-called Islamic State held control over archaeological sites, had in its possession looted archae-ological cultural property and levied taxes on artefacts discovered during illegal excavations,55 and also that one of the attackers of 11 September 2001 was financed by the sale of Afghan cultural property.56 In current investi-gations, moreover, several internationally operating art dealers are suspected of having listed for sale antiquities looted by terror organisations.57

The ILLICID project concentrated on identifying, ana-lysing and classifying ACOMs listed for sale in publicly vis-ible marketplaces. It was focused on Germany and was not equipped to conduct source research in other coun-tries. Given those parameters, the following observations were made in regard to the phenomenon described: It is certainly noteworthy that despite the clear prohibitions on import, export and trading due to the EU regulations on Syria and Iraq, 38.9 % of ancient cultural objects trad-ed in Germany were highly likely to have originated from Iraq or Syria. Meanwhile, merely 43.8 % (Iraq) and 61.9 % (Syria) of these objects satisfied the legal requirements under the EU regulations for placing these objects on the market based on the vendor’s own statements (evaluat-ed as »3–5« according to the EU regulations for Iraq and Syria; see Table 2). In addition, this was only verifiable for 0.4 % (Iraq) and 9.6 % (Syria) of listed objects based on the publicly available information (Figures 7–8). Therefore, in the absence of suitable and meaningful documents which the vendors neglected to transparently provide, one can-not preclude the possibility that any of the other cultural objects the ILLICID project identified as having very like-ly originated from Iraq or Syria had been looted, illegally exported from their country of origin, illegally imported into Germany and thus the European Union, and illegally placed on the market here for the sake of financing terror-ist groups and activities. This is an alarming finding given the strict import, export and trade restrictions that apply

to ancient cultural objects from these two countries due to the EU regulations throughout the European Union as well as in light of the ongoing, extensive destruction and looting of ancient cultural property in these countries.

1.3.7 Development of digital monitoring tools

In order to develop and review the technical feasibility of future strategies in the area of digitally monitoring the cultural property trade, experts from the Fraunhofer Insti-tute for Secure Information Technology (SIT) took part in the ILLICID project. In this endeavour, they sought primar-ily to address three focus areas: Making monitoring less time-consuming, achieving persistent access of fast-mov-ing online business and supporting law enforcement agen-cies with their inspections on the ground.

An initial goal was to reduce the time required to iden-tify and catalogue the volume of relevant ancient cultural property when monitoring the internet. To that end, they used procedures for similarity comparisons such as text rec-ognition (natural language processing) and for image rec-ognition (machine learning with neural networks58), which successfully reduced the required time in the demonstrator models developed.59 Relevant objects were identified on selected platforms with a higher share of hits than with the manually catalogued ancient cultural objects, as determined by a comparison of both methods. In future, the automatic searching and retention (crawling) of potentially relevant listings can obviate the need for manually researching and cataloguing listings one by one; this way, antiquities experts can concentrate on assessing the content of relevant list-ings.

A second problem area with regard to monitoring the trade in ancient cultural objects is generated by the fast pace of online auctions, meaning that the entire market can only be kept under observation with close-knit search routines. The strategy tested in this case involved persis-tently saving an object listing (see Figure 2). For the crawled website, a database already demonstrated on a rudimenta-ry level that it is possible to save data persistently using efficient import mechanisms in order to analyse it later. In future, a graphical user interface will make it possible to access the websites’ data and metadata even if those web-sites are no longer available on the internet.60

54 For example, Bloch, 2014; Wessel, 2015a, pp. 37–44; Heißner, Neumann, Holland-McCowan and Basra, 2017; Schreg, Archaeologik, n. d. [a blog with numerous links on the subject]; Brodie et al., 2019, pp. 112–115.55 Keller, 2015; Wessel, 2015b; U.S. Department of Justice, 2016.56 »Kunst als Terrorfinanzierung«, 2005.57 For the case of Spain, see Loore, 2018; Brodie et al., 2019, pp. 123–125. For the cases of the US and Switzerland, see Faucon & Kantchev, 2017; Kantchev, 2018.58 Mayer, Schäfer & Steinebach, 2018.59 Refining the demonstrator model into an operational version would require further time and person-hours; implementation adjustments to the crawling component and the PDF framework are necessary, dependent on

the trading web pages and the automated processing of auction catalogues. Furthermore, the components must be maintained on an ongoing basis to guarantee full functionality, for example when vendors redesign their web-sites or restructure their auction catalogues. In other words, the budget must account for both the solution’s implementation and its operation.60 For production to application maturity, it would be necessary to re-fine the technologies developed in the areas of crawling and data persis-tence as well as text- and image-based similarity search beyond the level of the current demonstrator. This primarily includes extensive testing and debugging stages to eliminate errors and increase the robustness of each of these components. Furthermore, it would be necessary to redesign the front end with a focus on intuitive operation and to prepare and im-plement a roll-out concept for a given user’s IT infrastructure.


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A third problem area is the need for employees of cus-toms and law enforcement agencies to recognise objects as protected ancient cultural property when they view them in person. To assist these employees with inspections on the ground, a subcontractor developed a demonstrator as a mobile app and adapted its structure to the needs of po-tential end users, especially emphasising intuitive operation (see Figure 3). Using an interface that was set up on the project server, the smartphone app can display information that assists with classifying objects. An ergonomic compro-mise was struck between richness of detail and usability. The app is capable of retrieving stored data and displaying it to the end user for comparison purposes. It also helps us-ers classify found objects themselves using a »thesaurus« that describes its attributes hierarchically. The structure and wording of the thesaurus were coordinated between the antiquities experts and potential end users in customs en-forcement and the Land Criminal Police Offices. Via the ap-plication programming interface (API), the app can access the framework’s crawled data and compare photographs from objects presented with this data.

Thus, for all three stated goals, technological solution models and demonstrators were developed and their func-tionality tested in the framework of the ILLICID project.

1.3.8 Findings of stakeholder surveys

The results of the social science sub-project have been in-corporated throughout this investigation report, but they particularly provided an indispensable scholarly founda-tion for developing policy recommendations related to the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany. For this rea-son, there will not be a separate detailed description of all the results of the social science sub-project here.61

Overall, the findings of the social science sub-project demonstrated that surveying stakeholders is a good tool for obtaining an impression of which topics, questions and challenges are significant in an opaque zone such as the trade in ancient cultural objects. However, this tool is not suitable for drawing concrete conclusions about the mar-ket as a whole. Because of selection bias and the difficulty of identifying the totality of the groups to be surveyed, one must assume that the current findings of the social science stakeholder survey are not representative and therefore not generalisable. Nevertheless, they offer clues about possible issues and the respondents’ assessments of them-selves.

The participation rate among the investigatory agencies was between 92 % (Land Criminal Police Offices, Federal

Criminal Police Office n = 23) and 100 % (Customs n = 21). Among museums, foundations and collections, 42 % (n = 90) of those the project approached participated; the share was 35 % (n = 187) among experts and appraisers and 29 % (n = 50) among restorers. The participation rate among the 289 invited dealers and auction houses remained very low despite multiple reminders and the additional option to participate by post: 10 % (n = 7) for personal interviews and 6 % (n = 17) for the online survey.62

There are various explanations for the low participa-tion rates on the surveys of dealers and auction houses. To begin with, it must be acknowledged that low willing-ness to participate in company surveys is not uncommon.63 A telephone-based non-response survey of a sample of about 10 % of non-participants (n = 24) found that lack of time was the primary reason for the failure to participate in the study.64

In regard to the implementation of the social science investigation, it could be considered methodologically problematic that before the field-work stage, the ILLICID project had already been covered in the press and sharply criticised by representatives of the art market in Germa-ny.65 This press coverage gave some dealers the impres-sion that the survey was not part of a research project operating with purely scholarly methods. The responses to GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences indicate that dealers felt unjustly criminalised. In general, negative reactions to the project were in some cases disseminated directly via publishing channels of various dealers’ asso-ciations. While the direct effect of these measures on the willingness to participate cannot be precisely estimated, it can be assumed to have had a generally negative im-pact. The opportunity to correct the presumed negative image of the market by participating in the survey and to help objectify the debate was apparently perceived as less relevant at that point. The fact that a greater num-ber of survey participants were more complimentary than critical in their remarks about the ILLICID project was very gratifying.

Before the survey was conducted, it was not known whether specific stakeholders approached were in fact active in the project-relevant segment66. For this reason, every questionnaire began with questions about the re-spondent’s possession of, involvement with and volume of ACOMs handled as part of a respondent’s work. Most of the substantive questions about the ACOM topic area were only relevant to stakeholders who did in fact work with such objects. Accordingly, a large share of the questions in the individual small-scale surveys were solely aimed at this group.

There was a particular interest in estimating the scope of the trade. Figure 16 reports how many ACOMs the re-

61 Fahrenholz, Götze, Pötzschke and Biedinger, 2020a and 2020b.62 Participants in personal interviews were not additionally invited for the online survey.63 Landrock, Best and Pforr, 2017, pp. 61–78; White & Luo, 2005.64 Non-participants were defined as companies that had never started the survey (nnon-participants = ntotal – nnet – nincomplete).

65 Kampmann, 2015; Kampmann, 2016; Hilgert, 2017.66 In order to narrow down the scope of the collaborative project, the questions were restricted to ancient objects, excluding coins, that origi-nated in Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria or Turkey.


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spondent dealers and auction houses sold in total in the years of 2014, 2015 and 2016. It is notable that up to six respondents claimed not to have sold any objects at all. Apart from this, the quantity of objects sold is highly var-iable, with ACOMs comprising only a portion of the total sales. In all three years, among the ACOM sellers, the larg-est group sold between one and a hundred of such ob-jects. In 2014 and 2015, however, there was also a vendor who sold more than 1,000 ACOMs, although coins were not among the project-relevant objects. If one compares the figures across the three years – for the relatively few participating dealers and auction houses – there is no identifiable trend (as in a major increase or decrease) in the trade in ACOMs.

As part of the study, the dealers and auction houses were also asked the size of their commission on the sales prices at auction. A total of 13 of the respondents answered. All values specified were between 10 % and 30 %. The average commission was 18.62 % of the sales price.

The question about changes in the trade in ACOMs since 2010 was answered by the 22 participating dealers and auction houses who sold project-relevant antiqui-ties. Seven people were of the opinion that nothing had changed for them. Five people specified that »little« had


Figure 16 GESIS survey of dealers and auction houses about the number of sold/auctioned ACOMs © GESIS

changed; another five reported »strong« changes. Two people perceived the change as »very strong«, one person as »moderately« strong and two people did not reply.

This small extract from the questionnaire content rep-resents a clear success in the objective of gleaning more insights into the trade in cultural property, even if method-ological challenges did arise. However, from a scholarly per-spective, those challenges also helped to more closely illus-trate the possibilities and limitations of standardised survey research when posing questions to organisations in general.

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On the basis of the research findings produced by the transdisciplinary ILLICID project, we can outline policy recommendations with the aim of strengthening the legal trade in cultural objects in Germany, increasing consumer protection and improving the parameters in Germany for countering and preventing crime in connection with the illicit trafficking in cultural property. These policy recom-mendations are categorised within three general fields of action, each with its own specific challenges, correspond-ing tasks and concrete measures to implement those tasks as described in this report. The three general fields of ac-tion are:

1. Awareness-raising2. Strengthening legal trade and consumer protection3. Monitoring, inspections and strengthening executive

oversight.

2.1 Field of action I: Awareness-raising

The prevention of destruction, illegal excavation and loot-ing of (ancient) cultural property in its countries of origin has long been a common concern of states, institutions and individuals, which is shared by commercial stakeholders.67 Recent examples of attempts to obliterate the cultural heritage of an entire region included targeted attacks by the Islamic State terrorist militia in Palmyra, at the tomb of the prophet Jonah in Mosul, and elsewhere. Similarly, the destruction by Al-Qaeda of the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre in 2001 generated highly sym-bolic images of an attack on the values and identities of people with another belief system. From the perspective of

cultural sociology, historical and ancient sites – with their respective material legacies – form a fundamental part of these identities.68 Hence, ancient cultural property is unlike other merchandise for which monetary value is decisive; these objects transmit symbols of a cultural community of values.69 In 2016, in the Al-Mahdi case, the International Criminal Court in The Hague sanctioned the destruction of the UNESCO World Heritage of Timbuktu as a war crime.70

Yet the destruction of cultural property begins at a small scale. Illegal excavations cause the irrevocable loss of key information about a discovery. When museums are looted, society is directly robbed of cultural property. In many cases, cultural property is looted or destroyed be-cause of economic hardship or political instability. But even in countries such as Germany, so-called treasure hunters or metal detectorists, who set off on unauthorised quests for buried artefacts, inflict major damage on archaeological cultural heritage.71 They do not always correctly perceive the ramifications of their actions or the scope of the havoc they are wreaking on archaeological cultural heritage.

The ILLICID project has demonstrated that for the vast majority of ancient cultural objects from the eastern Med-iterranean region traded in Germany, it is impossible to gauge reliably on the sole basis of publicly accessible infor-mation about an object whether a listing is legal. This is a se-verely problematic finding in light of the stringent legal and ethical provisions that apply to the treatment of ancient cultural objects on both a national and international level.

Thus, a core challenge lies in raising awareness of the macrosocial significance of cultural property, the dangers facing these cultural objects and the special responsibility held by institutions and individuals who are active in the trade in cultural property – as already articulated in a fair number of professional codes of conduct72 – and putting this awareness into practice.

2 Policy Recommendations: Challenges, Tasks, Measures

67 The International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA) com-ments on this in its public statement: »IADAA ... stands against the dest-ruction of the past, whoever is responsible. Governments have often been as guilty as looters in this respect. Even archaeologists have sometimes been culpable. IADAA will use every effort to raise awareness of such de-struction. As our code of ethics makes clear, we refuse to deal in pieces which are looted or stolen. We also support the right of all countries to safeguard and keep in public ownership objects of great importance to their cultural identity in which respect the UNESCO treaty is to be praised« (n. d., Statement of IADAA). 68 Viejo Rose, 2007, pp. 102–116; von Schorlemer, 2016, 42 f.69 Klöckner, 2015.70 International Criminal Court, 2016.71 Davydov et al., 2016.72 The recommendations and commercial codes of conduct advocate cooperation with the countries of origin and the repatriation of antiqui-ties upon receiving proof of a legal entitlement. However, they general-ly only mention stolen cultural objects, not illegally excavated ones (a

practice that has been prevalent for more than a century). In their more detailed explanatory notes, commercial codes of ethics usually fall short of UNESCO’s recommendations (1999).

Codes of ethics have been published by the Association of German Art Auctioneers (n. d.) and the Austrian Economic Chambers (2020). Aside from the national legal situations in their own respective countries, both codes make reference to the legislative stipulations of the countries of ori-gin and to illegal excavations. The German example also articulates restric-tions for the sake of legal security. Another code of conduct from a relevant body is that of the Association of International Antiquities Dealers (AIAD, 2016), which recommends »not to buy or sell objects stolen from archaeo-logical excavations, architectural monuments, public institutions or priva-te property«. Illegal excavations are not mentioned – only archaeological excavations during which losses can be documented. It also recommends checking the Art Loss Register or comparable databases for objects valued at more than £ 2,000 (see also footnote 77 for more on the Art Loss Re-gister, which for logical reasons cannot record illegally excavated cultural objects as »illegal«).

Policy Recommendations: Challenges, Tasks, Measures

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The International Confederation of Antiques and Art Dealers (CINOA) has published two versions of its code of ethics. Their language diverges, but both only opted for the legislation of the market countries as their frame of reference: one version from 2005 and one version on the con-federation‘s website, n.d. Both codes of ethics caution against trading in objects using materials from endangered animals (Article 3 and 2, res-pectively), trading in objects registered as stolen (Article 4 and 3, respec-tively), or participating in money laundering (Article 5 or 4, respectively) and recommend verifying listed objects’ authenticity (Article 6 and 5, re-spectively). On its »About us« page, the International Association of Dea-lers in Ancient Art (IADAA) remarks – without a concrete reference to in-

ternational conventions or the laws of the countries of origin (n. d.; 2018) that members are obligated to check all ancient cultural objects with a resale value of more than € 5,000 with the Art Loss Register (see above), or even in the INTERPOL stolen works of art database (n. d., first publis-hed in 2012). Further, they recommend only accepting objects for which such checks can be conducted in good faith and after having established to the best of their ability that the – authentic – objects have not been stolen from excavations, architectural monuments, public institutions or private individuals. For more on codes of ethics in general, see also ICOM International Observatory on Illicit Traffic in Cultural Goods, n. d.73 See Dietrich, 2009.


Figure 17 a GESIS survey of museums, foundations and collections about purchasing policies for ACOMs © GESIS

Figure 17 b GESIS survey of restorers about place of employment and provenance checks when accepting an assignment© GESIS

Measure A: Public information campaigns and publicity formatsIn the field of conservation (protected animal and plant species), public information campaigns both in the media and at well-visited public places such as airports and rail-way stations have been extraordinarily effective in building widespread awareness of the cause of conservation and in spurring lasting changes in civilians’ behaviour. A corres-ponding shift in behaviour and awareness is needed in the area of cultural objects. We therefore recommend planning and carrying out public information campaigns that are able to trigger a lasting shift in behaviour and awareness by specifically addressing the consequences of illegal excava-tions and looting as well as the seminal importance of legal, transparent provenance of traded cultural property.

At the same time, it is recommended that institutional collections of cultural objects establish formats for presen-tation and communications towards the same objective of effecting such a shift in society’s behaviour and awareness. In this respect, more than most, the collections of muse-ums and universities serve as public platforms for embed-ding cultural property within the context of its cultural and social history. This is true in two different contexts:

The first socio-historical context is the one for which the cultural property was created. It refers to the practices of its production and usage within the framework of an-cient cultures. Antiquities experts can obtain information on this from careful documentation of the object’s circum-stances of discovery, which allows them to reconstruct how the objects fit into the lived settings of past societies. The information about what these discoveries mean is applied cultural property protection: it promotes an appreciation of the significance obliterated by undocumented illegal excavations and so-called treasure hunting.

Cultural property attains its second socio-historical framework of meaning as part of a collection. Accession agreements, correspondence, scientific discourses and

2.1.1 Task 1: Raising awareness of the problem and increasing perceived accountability

The investigations and surveys conducted as part of the ILLICID project found disparate levels of perceived account-ability for and awareness of the problem when dealing with ancient cultural property without provenance documenta-tion. Among most museums, university collections and staff, most institutionally affiliated restorers and some investigato-ry agencies, the importance of legal provenance had clearly been prioritised as a result of systematic provenance research

in recent decades, according to the survey by GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (Figures 17 a and b). Acquisi-tions without meaningful evidence of provenance are usually declined, as required by the ICOM Code of Ethics.73

Among the restorers surveyed, a higher share of museum workers than non-museum workers conduct provenance checks upon receiving an assignment (Figure 17 b). Where-as 80 % of respondent museum employees check the prov-enance at least some of the time, this is true for only half of those who do not work at museums.

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74 For an overview, see Trümpler, 2010.75 Heidelberg University’s Heidelberg Centre for Cultural Heritage is currently preparing an MA degree programme in Cultural Heritage and

Figure 18 GESIS survey of museums, foundations and collections about addressing provenance in exhibitions © GESIS

Protection of Cultural Goods with financial support from the Land of Ba-den-Württemberg’s Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts.

disputes, documentation, differing presentation contexts and inscriptions bear witness to the many changes sin-ce Antiquity. The context of larger collections’ acquisition as a state’s property usually testifies to national interests that, in the nineteenth century, led to expeditions and re-search missions to the eastern Mediterranean region and far beyond. In the framework of efforts that were partly co-lonial in nature, they promulgated the world’s diversity in European museums and at times also proclaimed their own nation’s cultural superiority or alleged an historical link to the great civilisations of the past.74 Over time, collections on exhibit transformed from cabinets of curiosities into si-tes of cultural education.

Today, museums’ permanent and special exhibitions are increasingly highlighting objects’ provenance, acquisi-tion history and itinerary. Accordingly, during the ILLICID project, a shift in the assessed importance of provenance research was ascertained. The vast majority of the muse-ums and collections surveyed by GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences stated that they publicly addressed the acquisition methods of the objects in their own exhibi-tions or had plans to do so (see Figure 18).

Measure B: Expanded curricula of universities and (basic or further) training programmesLikewise, it seems both sensible and necessary for mem-bers of the executive branch, the judicial branch and aca-demic experts in the field to deepen their knowledge about the challenges of determining the provenance of protected cultural property – and about cultural property protecti-on in general. We therefore recommend integrating these topics as extensively as possible into the corresponding curricula of universities and (basic or further) training pro-grammes. According to the survey by GESIS – Leibniz In-stitute for the Social Sciences, the investigatory agencies particularly desired training about the following topics (see Figure 19).

In turn, antiquities experts, who often also work as ex-pert appraisers for private individuals (Figure 21) and/or as museum employees, frequently lack knowledge about the relevant body of regulations as well as the remits and com-petencies of institutions. It therefore seems advisable that regular modules about cultural property protection and its legal requirements be established as part of the university curricula of relevant degree programmes.75

Additionally, a systematic survey should be conducted to assess the demand for basic and further training catered to employees of other relevant stakeholders, such as insti-tutions that preserve cultural property, judicial authorities and trade supervisory authorities.


Measure C: Primary and secondary educationThe extent to which the social significance and protection of cultural objects can be more prominently incorporated into school curricula merits further investigation. Awa-reness of the value of culture and respect of the cultural objects of one’s own and other societies cannot begin too early. As sites of extracurricular learning, museums can make an important contribution to this working in coope-ration with schools.

Figure 19 GESIS survey of investigatory agencies about topics of further training measures © GESIS

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2.1.2 Task 2: Raising awareness of historical con-texts

In Europe, from an historical perspective, the trade in and the collecting of ancient cultural property from non-Europe-an countries of origin are inextricably linked to asymmetrical power relations that, in many cases, have effects extending into the present day. When building societal awareness of the treatment of ancient cultural property from non-Euro-pean countries of origin and their usually inadequate prov-enance documentation, it is essential to acknowledge this context and the fact that future conscientious treatment of cultural objects can help to improve the political, economic, academic and cultural exchange with the respective coun-tries of origin.76 It is therefore imperative to strengthen pub-lic awareness of these issues: the numerous complex histor-ic contexts of cultural objects from non-European countries of origin, the importance of researching the provenance of such collection holdings in Germany, and the political and economic impacts resulting from historical asymmetries, which are also indirectly expressed in illicit trafficking in an-cient cultural objects, past and present.

76 Hilgert, 2015; Hilgert’s foreword to Wessel, 2015a, pp. 7–11. 77 In this context, the trade often enforces checking the Art Loss Re-gister (ALR); see also footnote 72. This is the world’s largest private data-base of lost and stolen artworks, which was established in 1990 as a col-laboration between auction houses (including Sotheby’s and Christie’s), international associations of art dealers, representatives of the insurance industry and the International Foundation for Art Research. However,

affirmations that ancient cultural objects have been checked against the ALR database offer patchy assurance at best, even according to the claims of the ALR’s own website; it also includes no indication regarding illegally excavated antiquities. The ALR certificate includes the language, »The ALR database does not contain information on illegally excavated artefacts unless they have been reported to us« (The Art Loss Register, n. d.).

Figure 20 GESIS survey of dealers and auction houses about checking provenance © GESIS

Measure D: Research and publication of provenance information With an eye to raising public awareness of the complex historical contexts of ancient cultural objects from non-Eu-ropean countries of origin, greater efforts should be made to research the provenance of such cultural objects, espe-cially those held in public collections, and to publish the findings of this research and incorporate them, as appro-priate, in museum exhibitions and communications. This would also create a commercial incentive.


2.2 Field of action II: Strengthening legal trade and consumer protection

The trade in ancient cultural objects relies on transparen-cy and trust. Regulations that make the legality of trad-ed objects identifiable and thus permit a clear distinction between the market’s legal and illegal segments bolster vendors and buyers alike, and therefore enhance Ger-many’s status as an art market. To date, there has been a lack of tools to enable such a clear distinction between legally and illegally traded ancient cultural property. The findings of the ILLICID project indicate that the vast ma-jority of traded ancient cultural objects from the eastern

Mediterranean region are apparently placed on the mar-ket without transparent and verifiable information regard-ing their provenance despite the existence of clear legal regulations. That means that even if those who place an-cient cultural property on the market comply with the due diligence requirements stipulated in the Cultural Property Protection Act (see Figure 20),77 it cannot be entirely pre-cluded that ancient cultural property with unclear prove-nance statements will continue to be traded in Germany.

Given all this, the finding documented in Figure 20 is par-ticularly striking: even in the first half of 2017, after the Cul-tural Property Protection Act had entered into force on 6 August 2016, dealers freely acknowledged that provenanc-es were going unchecke.

2.2.1 Task 3: Increasing transparency

The primary goal in strengthening Germany as an art mar-ket with a trade in ancient cultural objects must be to in-troduce binding and enforceable regulations to establish transparency about the legality and authenticity of the ob-jects traded, on the basis of which all market players can make a clear distinction between legally traded and illicitly trafficked objects. Only transparent, verifiable provenance information effectively and sustainably protects the market from infiltration by illicitly trafficked or forged objects. This is undoubtedly also in the interests of trade. The prerequisites to ensuring greater consumer protection through transpar-

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ent evidence of legality and authenticity include meaningful digital documentation of the objects traded, disclosure of their provenance and their certification, based on this doc-umentation, as cultural objects that may be legally traded.

78 International Council on Archives, 2016.79 For the sake of comparison, UNESCO provides a database of sample export authorisations: UNESCO, UNESCO database of national cultural he-ritage laws, n. d. However, countries in the eastern Mediterranean region, with the exception of Israel, do not permit export as a general principle, so they have not created any forms for comparison.80 For example, a precise object description including the object’s weight, its cultural classification, possible with reference to relevant lite-rature and mention of restoration measures.81 Since 2006, ICOM, INTERPOL, and UNESCO have continued to ad-vocate a visible label on online listings stating that the trade in ancient cultural property is subject to legal regulations and that these should be checked before a purchase; see UNESCO, INTERPOL, & ICOM, 2006: »With regard to cultural objects proposed for sale, and before buying them, buyers are advised to: i) check and request a verification of the licit pro-

venance of the object, including documents providing evidence of legal export (and possibly import) of the object likely to have been imported; ii) request evidence of the seller’s legal title. In case of doubt, check prima-rily with the national authorities of the country of origin and INTERPOL, and possibly with UNESCO or ICOM.« See also Brodie, 2017.82 Via the Transparency Register (Bundesanzeiger Verlag, n. d.), com-panies or other legal persons have to provide information about their beneficial owners if that information is not already evident from entries and documents from specific other public registries.83 According to Regulation (EU) 2017/821 of 17 May 2017, the due diligence requirements consist of checking the sources of the »conflict minerals« in the transparency register; see also Uhte, 2018. 84 See the sidebar of Measure L.

Measure E: Digitisation of trade publicationsIn order to make it easier for all those involved in the trade in ancient cultural objects to access information on ancient cultural objects that have been on the market for a long time, inventories, post-1945 auction catalogues and com-parable documents should be made available to a wider pu-blic. Currently, there is no publicly accessible library focused on comprehensively collecting this backlog of trade publica-tions. They lie scattered and incompletely collated across a wide range of libraries, commercial entities and museums. Pre-1945 auction catalogues have already been collated in accordance with the guidelines of the International Council on Archives as part of the reckoning with the confiscation of cultural property due to Nazi persecution, and are digi-tally accessible.78 A similar initiative to digitise and digitally publish post-1945 trade publications is recommended. The library of Heidelberg University, for example, possesses the infrastructure required for digitising catalogues.


Measure F: Disclosure of objects’ documentationIt is recommended that appropriate action be taken to en-sure that for all ancient cultural objects listed for sale, avai-lable documentation about the object (particularly its ex-port permit,79 provenance certificate, meaningful images, restoration documentation, proof of authenticity80) that verifiably demonstrates the listing’s legality is duly publis-hed together with the object in question.81 In the process, compliance with the applicable data protection provisions must be maintained. Furthermore, the practice of listing ancient cultural objects in larger aggregate lots should not serve the purpose of foregoing diligent object descriptions and provenance documentation. In this context, the due diligence requirements stipulated by the Cultural Property Protection Act should be defined more precisely and con-cretely in order to assist stakeholders who are striving for a legal market in ancient cultural property. It would make sense, for example, to have a regulation according to which only ancient cultural objects with at least one detailed, veri-fiably legal provenance and at least two meaningful, unam-

biguous images may be listed for sale. This could be based on a brochure or check-list for the trade and for consumers, such as the five-level provenance assessment scheme (see Table 1) developed in the framework of the ILLICID project. Corresponding resources and information about how to treat ancient cultural property could be published on the website www.kulturgutschutz-deutschland.de.

Measure G: Transparency register of ancient cultural ob-jectsTo establish the necessary transparency in the trade with ancient cultural objects in Germany, measures should be implemented with the aim of conclusively recording the status quo of the clear zone of ancient cultural pro-perty and the documentation available on it, initially for Germany. One role model could be the EU’s transparency register,82 introduced in 2017, partly in the context of the regulation on due diligence requirements for the trade in zinc, tungsten, tantalum and gold83. To this end, at first on a voluntary basis, ancient cultural objects under public or private ownership that are demonstrably legal for trade and are to be placed on the market in future should be inspected, described, documented, appraised by experts, digitally archived and officially registered. In these efforts, it should be assessed whether the public authorities can create incentives that make it attractive for private indi-viduals to participate in such registration. The benefits of such an official registration include reliable authentication and cultural-historical classification of ancient cultural pro-perty as well as, where applicable, giving the prospective vendor (legal) certainty that it will be legally possible to place the object on the market in future. The transparency of the clear zone this would generate could prevent forged or illicitly trafficked ancient cultural property from entering the German market.

The apparent lack of expert advice to enable private individuals to assess ancient cultural objects offered for sale in Germany (see 2.2.2 Task 4: »Strengthening consu-mer protection«) could also be alleviated by the proposed transparency register. In the course of creating the register, certified experts could develop consistent guidelines for handling such requests from private individuals, issue in-dependent expert assessments on a given ancient cultural object and keep a central record of them.84

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85 Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, n. d.86 Wehinger, 2011.87 A pedigree of this sort was already proposed by 260 archaeologists, museum directors and representatives of antiquities authorities in the so-called Berlin Resolution of 2003. See Heilmeyer & Eule, eds., 2004, pp. 236–238. 88 UNESCO & World Customs Organisation, 2005.89 For example, in a case known as the so-called Nigeria decision, the Federal Court of Justice ruled that no compensation was to be paid in the event of loss of improperly exported cultural property, Federal Court of Justice, 1972; see also Bleckmann, 1974. 90 For example, the University of Münster repatriated a marble head that presumably came from a pre-1937 illegal excavation, University of Münster, 2019.91 Act on the Protection of Cultural Property, 2016. Previously, the ap-plicable law was the act implementing the UNESCO Convention of 14 No-vember 1970 on the means of prohibiting and preventing the illicit import,

export and transfer of ownership of cultural property and implementing Council Directive 93/7/EEC of 15 March 1993 on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State, 2007.92 For example, Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main, 2011; Higher Administrative Court for North Rhine-Westphalia, 2013; Higher Admi-nistrative Court for Bavaria, Munich, 2017; Schreg, 2017.93 This fundamental long-term task remains in place regardless of the fact that the ILLICID project did not find any direct correlation between the quality of provenance and the sale price during the investigation pe-riod (see 1.3.4 »Revenue and object movements«).94 A search of the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s register of experts produced two certified experts in »ancient weapons« and three more in »ancient jewellery«. An expert in (classical) antiquities who was included in 2018 is no longer listed in 2019; see As-sociation of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry, n. d. 95 See the sidebar of Measure L.

2.2.2 Task 4: Strengthening consumer protection

Today, purchasing ancient cultural property is primarily a question of trust. In light of largely inadequate or lacking documentation of provenance, the absence of official cer-tification of authenticity and legality of traded ancient cul-tural objects and the divergent documentation standards for ancient cultural objects traded in Germany, we must ask how consumer protection can be improved and thus how the German art market can be buttressed overall.93

To date, there is no data available on consumers’ trust in the dealers and auction houses participating in the trade in ancient cultural property in Germany. Conceivably, would-be buyers may well presume that trade in ancient cultural property is subject to a high level of regulation and/or state supervision, and may have faith in vendors’ transparency and reliability. To justify this possible trust on the part of consumers, in future, transparent and verifiably legal provenance should be an indispensable prerequisite for purchasing ancient cultural property in Germany (see Measures E–H). Moreover, the state should regularly and comprehensively monitor the existence of suitably mean-ingful provenance information.

Finally, in view of the relatively high proportion of in-authentic objects to be suspected based on the findings of the ILLICID project, measures should also be taken to effec-tively protect consumers from purchasing forged objects. The availability of consumer guidance by independent cer-tified experts should urgently be expanded.94 This could be implemented, in particular, in the framework of the expert network proposed by this study (Measure L).95

Measure H: Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects (the so-called Antiquity passport)Other operational models for generating lasting transpa-rency for the trade in ancient cultural objects could include the measures combating the traffic in the so-called blood diamonds, the Washington Convention for endangered species and the associated WISIA (Information System on International Species Conservation) process,85 or the sys-tem of vehicle registration documents. In the case of the so-called blood diamonds, it was the Kimberly Process cer-tification scheme (KPCS), which the EU implemented with Council Regulation (EC) No. 2368/2002 of 20 December 2002, that made the crucial breakthrough.86 Today, only diamonds from certified, demonstrably legal mines may be traded, thus permanently stemming the tide of the so-cal-led blood diamonds from war and conflict zones into the European market.

In the same spirit, a procedure based on the trans-parency register (see Measure G) should be developed to certify cultural objects that could potentially be traded le-gally before they are placed on the market. A sort of the so-called antiquity passport could prove that the authenti-city and provenance of the corresponding ancient cultural object has been reviewed and verified.87 In cooperation with the World Customs Organisation, UNESCO has alrea-dy drafted a Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects.88

When selling an ancient cultural object, as when sel-ling a car, the name of the object’s current owner could be logged on the paper and/or stored in a database. Only people who enclose these officially issued papers and pass them on with the sale would be entitled to sell an object. This would make it more difficult to sell stolen objects and protect objects from theft and other losses. It would also be in the interests of insurance companies only to insure legal and authentic objects and only to defray the cost of such objects’ loss.89

A special case is posed by ancient cultural property that is already circulating in the market but is missing pro-venance documentation or is of undetermined provenan-ce. On the basis of the date threshold regulations – and even without obligations to this effect under the German Cultural Property Protection Act – specialist institutions are beginning to repatriate cultural objects with inade-quate or missing provenance.90 Vendors of ancient cultural property, on the other hand, are asserting that purchases

were made in good faith, invoking statutes of limitations or quoting the date thresholds of the Cultural Property Pro-tection Act91 and thus insisting that the cultural property remain in circulation92. On a case-by-case basis, potentially in the framework of coordination processes as part of a to-be-established »Cultural Property Trade« stakeholder forum (Measure J), pragmatic solutions must be sought to reconcile conflicting interests as much as possible.


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96 International Council of Museums (ICOM), 2004. The code of ethics was unanimously adopted on 4 November 1986 at the 15th ICOM ge-neral assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and amended on 6 July 2001 at the 20th ICOM general assembly in Barcelona, Spain, then revised on 8 October 2004 at the 21st ICOM general assembly in Seoul, South Korea.


Experts in antiquities and ancient cultural property rarely work outside research institutions. This explains why collectors and investigatory agencies each tend to sponta-neously contact specialised museums or universities with requests for expert assistance.

Around two-thirds of members of museum and univer-sity staff who were surveyed as part of the social science sub-project among the group of experts and appraisers in-dicated they respond to requests for reports – regardless of whether the requesters are private individuals or others (Figure 21), although restrictions are made (Figure 23).

Around one third of the surveyed members of muse-um and university staff indicated that they sometimes de-cline such requests. According to the findings of the ILLICID project, the experts’ and appraisers’ reasons for such re-jections include »questionable origin«, »missing accompa-

Figure 21 GESIS survey of experts and appraisers about writing re-ports on objects © GESIS

Figure 22 GESIS survey of experts and appraisers about declining report requests © GESIS

97 Museum Folkwang & Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1979, p. 200.98 Association of German Art Auctioneers, n. d., Database of critical works.

Figure 23 GESIS survey of museums, foundations and collections about guidelines for report requests © GESIS

Measure I: Database of presumptively forged cultural objects The problem of the high proportion of presumptive forge-ries in the trade in cultural objects is not a new one. Esta-blished in 1898, the International Association of Museum Officials for Defence against Forgeries and Improper Busi-ness Practices cultivated knowledge exchange through an image archive and annual conferences. Its activities ended with the Second World War.97 In the case of paintings, the-re are currently private-sector efforts to pool painstakingly gathered information. Information on listings subject to justified suspicions of forgery are gathered and provided for a fee to members of the Association of German Art Auc-tioneers (BDK).98 Here, a private initiative supplements the state’s consumer protection. In countries such as Turkey, a

nying documents« and doubts about the »client’s respect-ability« (see Figure 22).

Presented with the (hypothetical) scenario of such requests from private individuals, the museums also indicated that they regulate the issuance of expert assessments: 14 of the respondents indicated having specific guidelines, while 18 stated they did not have any such guidelines. According to the internal policies of six museums, no reports were to be issued for private clients; five museums declined to name a price or value (Figure 23). One museum draws up »reports only with proof of provenance«, another simply referenc-es the existing body of regulations, and another lists the »ICOM Code of Ethics«96 as a specification.

42

99 T. C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakalιğι, n. d.100 Le Conseil des Ventes Volontaires de meubles aux enchères publi-ques (CVV), n. d.

2.3 Field of action III: Monitoring, inspec-tions and strengthening executive over-sight

Illegally trafficked ancient cultural property can only be identified through research and inspections because such objects can be concealed in legal listings or sold outside reg-ular trading. Thus, illegal trafficking in cultural property is a classic example of an offence unlikely to be reported (»Kon-trolldelikt«). In other words, if no targeted inspections are conducted, the statistics will not show any illicit trafficking in ancient cultural property.

The ILLICID project has shown that there is a large num-ber and variety of vendors of ACOMs in Germany. However,

the trade supervisory authorities and in some cases inves-tigatory agencies do not have sufficient capacity for close monitoring of these market stakeholders. Furthermore, as the ILLICID project has also demonstrated, potentially le-gally traded cultural property can only seldom be clearly distinguished from illicitly trafficked cultural property on the basis of public and freely available information; the ancient cultural objects’ countries of origin, for example, can only be identified with great effort and corresponding scholarly expertise.

As a result, the effective implementation of the appli-cable German and EU legal stipulations governing the trade in ancient cultural objects requires measures that can en-sure ongoing expert monitoring of the objects being traded and, as needed, effective inspections of the market stake-holders. However, only 2.1 % of the ancient cultural objects from the eastern Mediterranean region investigated by the ILLICID project had transparent and verifiable provenance in line with the stipulations of the German Cultural Property Protection Act. Hence, one must conclude that the aspired degree of legal conformity following the entry into force of the 2016 Cultural Property Protection Act – with its aim of exclusively permitting verifiably legally tradable objects to be placed on the market – has not been achieved in the investigated market segment. In order to reach the overrid-ing political and social goal of a transparent trade in ancient cultural objects that is aligned with the requirements of consumer protection, action must urgently be taken.

2.3.1 Task 5: Identifying ancient cultural objects that are inauthentic or were not legally traded

The identification of inauthentic or illicitly trafficked an-cient cultural objects could benefit considerably from the implementation of the following measures as recommend-ed above:

• Digitisation of trade publications (Measure E) • Disclosure of objects’ documentation (Measure F)• Transparency register of ancient cultural objects (Measure G)• Model Export Certificate for Cultural Objects (the so- called Antiquity passport) (Measure H) • Database of presumptively forged cultural objects (Measure I)

In addition, the following supplementary measures appear sensible:

Measure J: »Cultural Property Trade« stakeholder forumThe sustainable protection of cultural objects is a challen-ge that can only be addressed by a collaborative effort of all relevant private-sector and societal stakeholders. In a regularly convening »Cultural Property Trade« forum, stakeholders in the cultural property trade should there-fore have a fundamental discussion about and, wherever possible, reach consensus on guidelines, measures and, if necessary, the expansion of consumer protection. Ideally, concrete steps to address illicit trafficking in ancient cultu-ral objects should also be coordinated with all stakeholders in order to make decisions with the greatest possible con-sensus, thus establishing permanent protection for ancient cultural property.

The »Cultural Property Trade« stakeholder forum was intended specifically to bring together expert scholars, representatives of museums, archives, libraries, universi-ty collections, the trade and its trade associations, private collectors and art law professionals as well as experts from the investigatory agencies, the federal and Land adminis-tration and political decision-makers. Representatives of countries of origin and international institutions of cultural property protection should likewise be closely involved in the development of relevant guidelines and measures.

state forgery database is already a standard, open-access resource.99 France offers another best-practice example with its communication, moderation and supervision enti-ty, the Conseil des Ventes Volontaires (CVV).100

Against this backdrop, Germany is likewise recommen-ded to establish a public database of putatively forged cul-tural objects; moreover, an EU-wide platform in this area should be sought.


43Policy Recommendations: Challenges, Tasks, Measures

Measure K: Continuation of the digitally assisted monito-ring and implementation of the ICT tools developed as part of the ILLICID projectAside from the shortage of expertise both at the investiga-tive agencies and the supervisory authorities (e. g., trade supervisory authorities) and for the assistance of private individuals (see 2.2.2 Task 4: »Strengthening consumer protection«), efforts to effectively address illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects face another grave problem: the fact that the employees of federal and Land authorities lack the capacity to continuously and systematically mo-nitor the diverse and highly fragmented market in ancient cultural objects in Germany. For this reason, it is not cur-rently possible to efficiently monitor the trade or to appro-priately enforce existing and/or new due diligence require-ments governing the handling of ancient cultural objects.

With that in mind, reference should be made to the IL-LICID project’s findings (see 1.3.1–1.3.3), which clearly show that the systematic monitoring of the trade in ACOMs by an-tiquities experts revealed an unexpectedly high volume of objects not previously known to the investigatory agencies at the Land and federal levels. In particular, for the antiquity market in cultural objects from Iraq and Syria, which overall is strictly regulated by the corresponding EU regulations regar-ding Iraq and Syria (Council Regulation (EC) No. 1210/2003 and Council Regulation (EU) No. 1332/2013), both the quan-tity of 2,387 objects over a 24-month period and the 38.9 % share of the German ACOM trade are alarmingly high.

Accordingly, expert monitoring of the trade in ancient cultural objects that is as comprehensive as possible ap-pears to be one of the key prerequisites for successful ef-forts by the federal and Land authorities to address illicit trafficking in cultural property in Germany as well as for a robust future assessment of the effectiveness of the new legal regulations in this area.

This monitoring scheme could build on the experien-ces of the ILLICID project and the methods developed du-ring the project. To cope with the high volume of objects, as part of the ILLICID project, the Fraunhofer Institute also researched and trialled ICT tools that, if developed to ma-turity, would significantly relieve the burden on customs authorities, experts and investigatory agencies (see 1.3.7 »Development of digital monitoring tools«).

With the help of a crawler and persistent retention, one-by-one capturing processes can be automated to ad-dress the high volume of objects and the rapid pace of online trading. This would make the task of checking the listings on the German market more efficient. Potentially problematic listings would then be identifiable and could be reported, after an appropriate inspection, to the corres-ponding authorities. Depending on the definition, between 90 and 200 vendors and online platforms and 10–30 online versions of print catalogues need to be captured and in-spected on an ongoing basis.

The demonstrator for a smartphone/mobile app of-fers assistance for the customs authorities and the inves-tigatory agencies, both with automated image recognition and with its keyword search and thesaurus functionalities, making it possible to search for comparisons to cultural property confiscated by customs, for example. Thanks to these comparative examples, the inspecting officials can express a rapid, but sound initial suspicion that would lead to apprehension. The decision as to whether an object is

protected ancient cultural property must be reached by the Land’s responsible cultural authority. Given the com-plexity of the subject matter, the involvement of indepen-dent experts is indispensable. For this reason, the cultural authority should therefore pass on the data to a – yet to be established – expert committee (Measure L, below) in order to decide whether to issue an order for the cultural property to be seized.

The ICT tools that have already been developed and coordinated among the respective experts are to be pilo-ted, refined for operational maturity, and provided to the investigatory agencies. To test-run the application’s matu-rity, corresponding authorities would have to be willing to integrate the ICT tools in question (crawling, data reten-tion, implementing the mobile app) into their workflows.

2.3.2 Task 6: Strengthening executive oversight

The case-based experiences gathered during the ILLICID project in cooperation with the investigatory agencies call attention to an overarching state of affairs. One of the core, fundamental problems in addressing illicit trafficking in an-cient cultural objects in Germany is that the federal and Land authorities do not currently have direct, comprehen-sive access to the diverse range of scholarly competencies that are absolutely necessary in order to authenticate and identify ancient cultural objects. However, in many instanc-es, the authorities’ ability to take further action depends on the rapid availability of precise, academically rigorous information about the genuineness and origins of an ob-ject. Decisions on whether to launch an investigation or to conduct policing measures such as seizure ultimately rely on these sorts of art-historical and cultural-historical as-sessments of the ancient cultural property by the author-ities responsible and are generally extremely time-critical.

One source of particular difficulty is that ancient cultur-al objects are looted and injected into the market through-out the world. As a result, an extraordinarily wide range of knowledge is required to identify and classify them, coming from numerous different academic disciplines in-cluding African studies, Native American studies, Classical and Near Eastern/Middle Eastern/West Asian Archaeology, Ancient Middle Eastern Studies, Indology and East Asian Art History. At present, these diverse and often uncommon scholarly competencies are entirely external to the federal and Land authorities that hold responsibility for address-ing illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects in Germany. Suitable experts are generally employed by universities, non-university research institutions and institutions of cul-tural preservation such as museums.

Due to the large number and complexity of the academ-ic specialisms required to classify ancient cultural objects, for example in the context of investigations, it is not possible for the employees of the authorities concerned to acquire this knowledge at an adequate level themselves. Neither does it presently seem practical or financially feasible for all these federal and Land authorities to hire new scholarly employ-

44

ees who can duly represent all the relevant areas of scholarly expertise.

To ensure that all authorities and organisations con-cerned with protecting cultural objects and addressing the illicit traffic in cultural property have rapid access to experts who work reliably, independently, efficiently and confiden-tially in line with objective criteria, and to avoid redundant inspection orders, there appears to be an urgent need to regulate, structure and certify this procedure.

Measure L: Network of experts to support executive over-sightCurrently, one of the greatest challenges with addressing the illicit trafficking in cultural objects at the national and in-ternational levels is ensuring the general availability and the efficient case-based deployment of the highly specialised expertise necessary to authenticate and identify ancient cultural objects from all regions of the world. Investigative agencies and customs authorities, not only in Germany, are still largely helpless in the face of the high volume of ancient cultural objects being traded, their typological and formal diversity, their usually inadequate provenance docu-mentation and the fairly high share of forgeries.

The establishment of an expertly coordinated and structurally reinforced national network of experts to pro-tect ancient cultural objects from being illicitly trafficked would not only make Germany a role model in the fulfil-ment of the UNESCO Convention of 1970, it would also play an urgent, critical role in the effective implementa-tion of the Cultural Property Protection Act. In the spirit of the sustainable utilisation of federal and Land research funding, the network of experts could continue seamless-ly where the transdisciplinary ILLICID project’s preliminary efforts left off.

The establishment of a national network of experts to protect ancient cultural objects from illicit trafficking would provide sustainable scholarly support to the federal and Land authorities (primarily the Federal Criminal Police Office, the Land police offices, the customs authorities, the Land cultural authorities, public prosecution offices, trade supervisory authorities) in addressing the illicit trafficking in ancient cultural objects, and particularly in enforcing the Cultural Property Protection Act.

In concrete terms, this support would especially take the following forms:

1. Prompt, confidential and academically rigorous pre-liminary assessments of ancient cultural objects for federal and Land authorities as a basis for their sub-sequent action;

2. rapid scholarly review and assessments of documents used as evidence of the legal export of ancient cultural objects;

3. newly created comprehensive scholarly reports on ancient cultural objects in connection with investiga-tions, legal proceedings or repatriation processes;

4. systematic, academically rigorous observation of the trade in ancient cultural objects in Germany (e. g. on-line auctions, trade fairs) with the objective of reliabil-ity assessing the volume of objects, the forms of list-


ings, and the practised due diligence obligations (see Measure K);

5. systematic documentation and permanent storage of work products as the foundation for a scholarly evalu-ation of the effectiveness of legal regulations;

6. targeted, academically rigorous further training of em-ployees at federal and Land authorities with the goal of expanding competencies in these institutions (e.g. in the fields of ancient cultural objects, national and international cultural property protection laws and ex-port documentation; see Measure B);

7. newly developed public relations content regarding cultural property protection and expert guidance on the implementation of appropriate communication formats and campaigns (see Measure A, C);

8. strengthened legal trade and consumer protection through the coordination of Measures E–I;

9. counselling and networking of national-level stake-holders, especially the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the customs authorities, the responsible ministries of the Länder, investigatory agencies, trade supervisory authorities, consumers, dealers, deal-ers’ associations, antiquities experts at universities, non-university research institutions and entities that preserve cultural property (see Measure J);

10. counselling and networking of international stake-holders, e. g. UNESCO, ICOM, institutions of countries of origin, INTERPOL, World Customs Organisation (see Measure J).

To ensure that the proposed national network of experts can carry out the above tasks as soon as possible, the following preparatory measures should be implemented promptly:

• The selection and formal appointment of certified experts with the corresponding scholarly qualifications who represent the full range of disciplines necessary for the scholarly assessment of ancient cultural objects. At least two individuals should be appointed per discip- line or subdiscipline to ensure that the national and Land authorities have access to the respective competencies if one of the experts is unavailable;• scholarly coordination and moderation of this expert committee by a yet-to-be-established scholarly steering committee, which structures communication between experts and authorities, ensures the scholarly quality and efficiency of the assessment procedure and guar- antees compliance with standards;• development of a standardised process, meeting the necessary confidentiality and security requirements, for federal and Land authorities to obtain preliminary scholarly assessments and comprehensive reports on ancient cultural objects;• establishment of a central access point for federal and Land authorities to obtain time-critical scholarly preliminary assessments of ancient cultural objects from members of the scholarly steering committee.

45

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Press and internet

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Association of International Antiquities Dealers (AIAD). (26 January 2016). Code of conduct. <http://aiad.org.uk/about-us/code-of-conduct> (18 August 2020)

Austrian Economic Chambers. (17 February 2020). Ethikkodex für den Kunst- und Antiquitätenhandel in Österreich.

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Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East & North Africa (EAME-NA) Project. (n. d.). <http://eamena.arch.ox.ac.uk/> (25 Febru-ary 2020)

Faucon, B., & Kantchev, G. (31 May 2017). Prominent Art Family in ISIS Antiquities-looting Investigations.The Wall Street Jour-nal. <https://www.wsj.com/articles/prominent-art-family- entangled-in-investigations-of-looted-antiquities-1496246740> (18 August 2020)

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Indices

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<www.kulturgutschutz-deutschland.de/DE/Staateninformation/staateninformation_node.html> (25 February 2020)

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German Lost Art Foundation. (n. d.). Lost art database. <http://www.lostart.de/Webs/EN/LostArt/Index.html> (25 February 2020)

Higher Administrative Court for Bavaria, Munich. (31 May 2017). Neue Juristische Wochenschrift [NJW] 3179, 2017. <https://www.gesetze-bayern.de/Content/Document/Y-300-Z-BECKRS-B-2017-N-114193?hl=true> (25 February 2020)

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International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA). (2016). Statement of IADAA. <https://iadaa.org/preface/statement-of-iadaa/> (18 August 2020)

International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art (IADAA). (5 De-cember 2018). Annex I – Code of Ethics and Practice and An-nex II – Due Diligence Guidelines. <https://iadaa.org/about-us/> (18 August 2020)

International Confederation of Antiques and Art Dealers (CINOA). (n. d.). Code of Ethics. <https://www.cinoa.org/cinoa/codeof-ethics> (25 February 2020)

INTERPOL. (n. d.). Stolen Works of Art Database. <https://w w w. i nte r p o l . i nt / C r i m e s / C u l t u ra l - h e r i ta ge - c r i m e / Stolen-Works-of-Art-Database> (25 February 2020)

Kampmann, U. (12 May 2015). Geheime Kartei »verdächtiger« Auktionen. MünzenWoche. <https://muenzenwoche.de/ge-heime-kartei-verdaechtiger-auktionen/> (18 August 2020)

Kampmann, U. (6 July 2016). Unter falscher Flagge? Pro-jekt ILLICID oder Meinungsumfrage. MünzenWoche. <https://muenzenwoche.de/unter-falscher-flagge-projekt- illicid-oder-meinungsumfrage/> (18 August 2020)

Kantchev, G. (29 March 2018). Suspected Traders of Ancient Art Linked to Islamic State Are Detained. The Wall Street Journal. <https:// www.wsj.com/articles/spanish-police-detain-two-men- s u s p e c te d - o f- s e l l i n g - a nt i q u i t i e s - l i n ke d - to - i s l a m i c - state-1522327053> (25 February 2020)

Keller, A. (29 September 2015). Documenting ISIL’s Antiquities Traf-ficking: The Looting and Destruction of Iraqi and Syrian Cul-tural Heritage: What We Know and What Can Be Done. U.S. Department of State. <https://2009-2017.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/2015/247610.htm> (25 February 2020)

Klöckner, L. (3 September 2015). Allmacht durch Zerstörung:

Was treibt den IS an, Kulturgüter zu vernichten? Ein Gespräch mit dem Konfliktforscher Wilhelm Heitmey-er. Die ZEIT, 36/2015. <https://www.zeit.de/2015/36/ palmyra-islamischer-staat-macht-wilhelm-heitmeyer> (25 Feb-ruary 2020)

Kunst als Terrorfinanzierung? (18 July 2005). Der Spiegel. <http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-41106138.html> (25 February 2020)

Loore, F. (29 March 2018). Trafic d’art et terrorisme: L’enquête de Par-is Match rebondit en Espagne. Paris Match. <https://parismatch.be/actualites/132038/trafic-dart-et-terrorisme-lenquete-de- paris-match-rebondit-en-espagne> (25 February 2020)

Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main. (18 August 2011). 2-13 O 212/10. <http://www.menzendorffpolscher.de/urteil- kulturgueterrecht/> (25 February 2020)

Schreg, R. (n. d.). Archaeologik. <http://archaeologik.blogspot.com/> (25 February 2020)

Schreg, R. (31 August 2017). Die Maske fällt im Oberland-esgericht München: Kein gutgläubiger Erwerb ohne Provenienznachweis. Archaeologik. <http://archaeologik. b l o g s p o t . c o m / 2 0 1 7 / 0 8 / d i e - m a s k e - f a l l t - i m - oberlandesgericht.html> (25 February 2020)

T. C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakalιğι/Kültür Varlιklarι ve Müzeler Genel Müdürlüğü, Sahte Eserler/Günümüz Yapımı Objeler [Forged/recently created objects]. (n. d.). <https://kvmgm.ktb.gov.tr/TR-44718/sahte-eserler--gunumuz-yapimi-objeler.html> (25 Febru-ary 2020)

UNESCO. (n. d.). Ratification of the Convention on the Means of Pro-hibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. <http://www.unesco.org/eri/la/convention.asp?KO=13039&language=E> (25 February 2020)

UNESCO. (n. d.). UNESCO Database of National Cultural Heritage Laws. <https://en.unesco.org/cultnatlaws> (18 August 2020)

UNESCO & World Customs Organisation. (2005). Model Export Cer-tificate for Cultural Objects. <https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000139620> (4 September 2020)

University of Münster. (6 June 2019). WWU gibt antiken Mar-morkopf an Italien zurück [Press release]. <https://www.uni-muenster.de/news/view.php?cmdid=10319> (25 February 2020)

U.S. Department of Justice. (15 December 2016). United States Files Complaint Seeking Forfeiture of Antiquities Associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) [Press release]. <https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/united-states-files- complaint-seeking-forfeiture-antiquit ies-associated- islamic-state> (25 February 2020)

Wessel, G. (26 November 2015b). IS-Finanzierung: Die Beute des Abu Sajjaf. Der IS finanziert seinen Terror auch mit dem Antiken-schmuggel; Jetzt gibt es neue Beweise für das Ausmaß des Ver-brechens. Die ZEIT 48/2015. <http://www.zeit.de/2015/48/is- finanzierung-handel-antiken> (25 February 2020)

Legal framework (national & international)

Act implementing the UNESCO Convention of 14 November 1970 on the means of prohibiting and preventing the il-licit import, export and transfer of ownership of cultural property and implementing Council Directive 93/7/EEC of 15 March 1993 on the return of cultural objects unlawful-ly removed from the territory of a Member State [Act on the Return of Cultural Property] [KultGüRückG]. (18 May

Indices

48

2007). Federal Law Gazette [BGBL] Part I, 757. <http://www. gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_kultg_r_ckg/> (18 August 2020)

Act on the Protection of Cultural Property [Cultural Property Pro-tection Act] [KGSG]. (31 July 2016). Federal Law Gazette [BGBL] Part I, 1914. <http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_kgsg/index.html> (18 August 2020)

Aristarchis, G. (1874). Législation ottomane: ou, Recueil des lois, réglements, ordonnances, traités, capitulations et autres doc-uments officiels de l’Empire ottoman. <https://archive.org/ details/lgislationottom01nikogoog> (18 August 2020)

Council Regulation (EC) No 1210/2003 Concerning Certain Specific Restrictions on Economic and Financial Relations with Iraq and Repealing Regulation (EC) No 2465/96. (7 July 2003). 2003 O.J. L169/6. <http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2003/1210/oj> (25 Feb-ruary 2020)

Council Regulation (EC) No 2465/96 Concerning the Interruption of Economic and Financial Regulations between the European Community and Iraq. (17 December 1996). 1996 O.J. L 337/1. <http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/1996/2465/oj> (25 February 2020)

Council Regulation (EU) No 36/2012 Concerning Restrictive Meas-ures in View of the Situation in Syria and Repealing Regulation (EU) No 442/2011. (18 January 2012). 2012 O.J. L 16/1. <http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2012/36/oj> (25 February 2020)

Council Regulation (EU) No 1332/2013 Amending Regulation (EU) No 36/2012 Concerning Restrictive Measures in View of the Sit-uation in Syria. (13 December 2013). 2013 O.J. L 335/3. <http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/1332/oj> (25 February 2020)

Directive (EU) 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Coun-cil Amending Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the Prevention of the Use of the Financial System for the Purposes of Money Launder-ing or Terrorist Financing, and Amending Directives 2009/138/EC and 2013/36/EU. (30 May 2018). 2018 O.J. L 156/43. <http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2018/843/oj> (18 August 2020)

Regulation (EU) 2017/821 of the European Parliament and of the Council Laying Down Supply Chain Due Diligence Obligations for Union Importers of Tin, Tantalum and Tungsten, Their Ores, and Gold Originating from Conflict-affected and High-risk Areas. (17 May 2017). 2017 O.J. L 130/1. <http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2017/821/oj> (25 February 2020)

UNESCO. (14 November 1970). Convention on the Means of Prohib-iting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. <https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000133378.locale=en> (4 September 2020)

U.S. Department of State. (3 December 1998). Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-confiscated Art. <https://www.state.gov/washington-conference-principles-on-nazi- confiscated-art/> (25 February 2020)

Figures, Maps, Tables

Figure 1: Diagram of the opaque zone of the trade in ancient cultural objects

Figure 2: Diagram of data capturing and retention strategy © Fraun-hofer SIT

Figure 3: Diagram of image similarity search via mobile app © Fraun-hofer SIT

Figure 4: Object categories of the ancient cultural objects listed for sale individually (WA = West Asian cultural objects; GR = Classi-cal, i. e. Graeco-Roman cultural objects from the eastern Medi-terranean region; and EGY, ancient Egyptian cultural objects)

Figure 5: Provenance evaluated according to the regulations of the German Cultural Property Protection Act

Figure 6: Export permits during the investigation periodFigure 7: Provenance evaluated according to the EU regulation on

cultural property from IraqFigure 8: Provenance evaluated according to the EU regulation on

cultural property from SyriaFigure 9: GESIS survey of dealers and auction houses about objects’

origins © GESISFigure 10: Provenance evaluated according to UNESCO Convention

of 1970Figure 11: Provenance evaluated according to the earliest law of the

respective country of originFigure 12: Assessment of the presumed authenticity according to six

categories (from »5 > very likely to be authentic« to »0 > certain-ly not authentic«). Objects (ACOMs) with completed scholarly analysis on the left; West Asian objects (WA) with completed scholarly analysis on the right

Figure 13: Assessment of authenticity using a 20-point system (see Table 3); objects (ACOMs) with completed scholarly analysis on the left; West Asian objects (WA) with completed scholarly anal-ysis on the right

Figure 14: GESIS survey of experts and appraisers about possible for-geries © GESIS

Figure 15: Distribution of starting and sale prices for ACOMsFigure 16: GESIS survey of dealers and auction houses about the

number of sold/auctioned ACOMs © GESISFigure 17 a: GESIS survey of museums, foundations and collections

about purchasing policies for ACOMs © GESISFigure 17 b: GESIS survey of restorers about place of employment

and provenance checks when accepting an assignment© GESISFigure 18: GESIS survey of museums, foundations and collections

about addressing provenance in exhibitions © GESISFigure 19: GESIS survey of investigatory agencies about topics of fur-

ther training measures © GESISFigure 20: GESIS survey of dealers and auction houses about check-

ing provenance © GESISFigure 21: GESIS survey of experts and appraisers about writing re-

ports on objects © GESISFigure 22: GESIS survey of experts and appraisers about declining re-

port requests © GESISFigure 23: GESIS survey of museums, foundations and collections

about guidelines for report requests © GESIS

Indices

Map 1: Project-relevant countries of origin for ancient cultural ob-jects

Map 2: Project-relevant countries of origin and earliest year of intro-duction of a ban on exporting ancient cultural property without an export permit

Table 1: Criteria catalogue for assessing statements about prove-nance

Table 2: Findings of categorisation of provenance according to each regulation

Table 3: Criteria catalogue for authenticity assessment and resultsTable 4: Examples of object movements

50

Impressum

Authors: Birthe Hemeier – Markus Hilgert

Translation: Language Services Division, Federal Foreign Office

Layout: Anja Ludwig, Gera

Publication date: September 2020

ISBN: 978-3-00-066704-6

Quotation: B. Hemeier – M. Hilgert, Transparency, Provenance and Consumer Protection. Facts and Policy Recommen-dations Concerning the Trade in Ancient Cultural Property in Germany. Findings of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s Collaborative Project »Analysing the Dark Figure as a Basis for Countering and Preventing Crime Using the Example of Ancient Cultural Property« (ILLICID) (2020)

Translation funded by

transparency, provenance and consumer protection facts and ... · facts and policy recommendations...

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