AIA Statement on Smithsonian Treasure Exhibition

.
AIA Statement on Belitung

June 8, 2011 | by Elizabeth Bartman

As the largest and oldest organization devoted to archaeology in North America, the Archaeological Institute of America is committed to the protection of the world’s cultural heritage. As part of this commitment we strongly oppose the commercial salvage of antiquities and any exploitation of archaeological materials obtained in this manner.

The Belitung Shipwreck was salvaged unscientifically by commercially-motivated treasure hunters. Although the excavation and disposition of these materials may be technically “legal,” it is the AIA’s position that involvement by the Smithsonian Institution in the exhibition of these artifacts will serve to blur the distinction between bona fide nautical archaeology and treasure hunting. Following this path puts the Smithsonian in the indefensible position of aiding those who believe that antiquities are a commodity to be mined for personal or corporate financial gain. They are not—they are part of the world’s cultural patrimony.

As the premier museum of the United States and the largest museum and research institution in the world, the Smithsonian is a model for others and should endorse the highest ethical standards for American archaeological and museological practice. The AIA urges the Smithsonian’s leadership to heed the voices of archaeologists worldwide—including many within its own walls—in cancelling the plans for any exhibition of the Belitung shipwreck and its artifacts. To proceed with plans to display these objects will increase the risk to other equally valuable shipwrecks that have yet to be discovered.

Elizabeth Bartman
President, AIA

It is interesting to compare this with the near total lack of reaction by British archaeological organizations to the plans last year to produce a Treasure-based "archaeology" TV programme by the PAS.

The Smithsonian, Sock Puppets and Commercial Salvage

.
Jennifer on Blogger since "June 2011" [and only one view of her ("unavailable") profile - mine] looks to me to be a sock puppet. She sent a comment to my text on the Smithsonian pretending to be reconsidering its involvement in the "Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds" exhibition. [This seems to be the Washington institution's dismissive answer to criticism of the ethics behind its exhibition]. Anyway, "Jennifer" wrote:

"I found the paper published by Michael Flecker regarding the difficulties surrounding excavations in developing countries (particuarly in S.E Asia) in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology in 2002 [...] Did you get a chance to read that? It makes me think that given the circumstances, use of a combined commercial and archeological programme for such excavations is the most realistic solution".

Yes, I have already read it. I'm not terribly impressed by its arguments. They are basically the same offered by commercial salvagers (read treasure hunters) everywhere. I assume "Jennifer B" will have read Hall's Fig and a Spade article which summarises them nicely. It is odd that the author really considers only the resolutions of the problem which suit his commercial backers. Basically what he's saying is we cannot protect sites like Angkor Wat from the looters, so what we have to do is dismantle it now ourselves and sell off the bits and use the money we make from it to conserve the bits - with a bit of profit for the government on the side. But of course, he argues, the situation in SE Asia is "exceptional" so that means it is not unethical to propose something like this... anything goes. Yeah, right.

"Jennifer" enthuses:

I do think that Tilman Walterfang took a good, ethical approach - considering the circumstances.

So is "Jennifer" in real life Flecker's girlfriend or Walterfang's?

I have nothing against archaeology being a commercial enterprise - that is after all how much European archaeology is funded these days. The key problem is whether and to what degree any compromise that is made compromises the archaeological principles or the commercial ones. So let's take a look at this "good ethical approach".

There's quite a lot in the Internet about the commercial salvage firm Seabed Explorations, a lot of it intended to promote the picture that its approach is a "good ethical" one. It seems at times to be trying too hard doesn't it?

So this is what it says about itself:

Seabed Explorations is dedicated to the discovery, excavation, conservation and exhibition of shipwrecks and artifacts of archeological significance that, at some time in history, have been lost to the oceans of Southeast Asia. The group, which has offices in Singapore and New Zealand, has been active in the field of maritime archaeology for over a decade. Seabed Explorations is a commercial enterprise that, in addition to a core team of specialists, employs distinguished scholars, undersea archeologists and restoration experts to assist with the care, management and authentication of finds discovered during our own salvage projects.

According to their website they've been involved in the excavation of at least three important wrecks in the space of just three years: the Intan Wreck (1997), the Maranei/Bakau Wreck (1998), and the Belitung (the Tang Wreck – Batu Hitam - 1998). No details are given of the publication of these projects or what else they've been up to since, though there is an undated photo on their website showing them "heading out to sea in Indonesia- on a preliminary reconnoissance dive; investigating a World War II shipwreck potentially consisting of a large collection of Asian antiquities". This artefact-centred approach is a theme that runs through all their publicity material. They give every appearance of being after the goodies, rather than the archaeological context:

Seabed Explorations works closely with governments in Southeast Asia to retrieve lost cultural relics for the benefit of scientists, historians and the public, and adheres to the highest technical standards of undersea excavation. We secure the rights to recover undersea artifacts from relevant authorities, and liaise with governments, at local and national levels, to comply with legal requirements regarding all salvage operations.

Again here:

Seabed Explorations utilizes established scientific processes and methodology to authenticate provenance of the artifacts, the vessel and its possible destinations.

I suppose that helps boost their retail value. And here:

Walterfang and his team can confidently conclude that they have the professional means and know-how to assist the governments and sovereign nations of the world in recovering lost treasures for forensic study and subsequent display.

Team Seabed Exploration states:

We are committed to making our finds available for study by historians, archeologists, anthropologists and other academics, as well as for viewing by the general public in the leading museums of the world whenever and wherever possible.

So these archaeologists only get involved when the finds have been hoiked out of the water? But how many archaeologists were involved in recording the complex three dimensional relationships of the timbers of the three wrecks? Actually in the water on site? How many diving hours were related to proper archaeological recording (to the "highest standards") as opposed to saleable-artefact recovery?

It is clear how many experienced archaeologists would have to be in a team recording the archaeological context of wrecks containing tens of thousands of individual pieces of information to the "highest technical standards of undersea excavation" and then work through the masses of documentation this would produce to write the final report of three wrecks. Maybe "Jennifer" knows how many archaeologists were in the Seabed Exploration team in 1977-8 and can tell us who they were. The only information I could find tells us that in 2004 there were only two archaeologists employed to work through the documentation of the three as-yet-unpublished wreck sites. Dr Flecker, who seems to have been involved in the second season on the Belitung but was no longer on the team a few years later, and has apparently managed to publish about nineteen pages on the wreck itself in preliminary articles in the JNA (here and here) which is hardly the level of detail of record one would expect from such an important site excavated to "highest technical standards of undersea excavation". Where is the rest?

Here is the line-up of Team Seabed Explorations New Zealand Ltd, in 2004
[1.] Tilman Walterfang, Director Seabed Explorations NZ Ltd.
[2.] Sabine Hahn, P.A. to Tilman Walterfang

Artefact Conservation team (preparing material for commercial display and sale)
[3] Andreas Rettel - Head of conservation
[4.] Laurenz Walterfang - conservation
[5.] Reimar Walterfang - Apprentice conservation
[6.] "Conservation, Roman German Museum in Mainz" (sic)
[7.] Florian B., conservation
[8.] Lesli Pluntke, Head of Ceramic Conservation Department of Roman German Museum in Mainz
[9.] Conservationist, Roman German Museum in Mainz (sic)

Archaeologists (dealing with the archaeological documentation)
[10.] Dr. Zoi Kotiza, Archaeologist
[11.] Dr. Alexandra Agapaki, Archaeologist

Others
[12.]Oli L. - Apprentice
[13.] Julina
[14.] Roland Dotschat, IT System Engineer
[15.] Jan. H., Electronic/ Mechanical Engineer

There are two things which strike you about this list. Two archies by themselves are not enough to prepare the final publication of three sites of this nature of complexity concurrently - and who are these guys anyway? Secondly what kind of organization is it that employs 'specialists' whose names they do not know alongside members of their own family? That does not look much like a "team of top specialists" to me.

So how can one describe what happened to the Belitung wreck (the one the Smithsonian exhibition is about)? Was it an archaeological project which is financed by exploiting the commercial value of the artefacts recovered ? Or was it a commercial treasure hunt cosmetically disguised as an archaeological project limited "by the circumstances"? To what degree would it be ethical for an archaeologist to take part knowingly and deliberately in the latter type of project? To what degree is it ethical for any institution to use its prestige to bolster the commercial success of such an operation (or does it not diminish the prestige of the institution to stoop to such acts)?

What, precisely, was being "preserved" here? of the PAS Are we not faced again with the type of picture of archaeology currently actively being promoted in the UK by the "archaeological outreach"- that archaeology is primarily about getting spectacular and tale-worthy artefacts out of the ground (here water) and into showcases to be gawped at? In both cases it is dressed up as "preservation", but each time it is an artefact-centred notion. IS archaeology really just about the artefacts, Indiana Jones grabbing stuff and pronouncing "this belongs in a museum!", and very little else? Or is now very old-fashioned and out-of-touch of me to remember wistfully the days when I was a student and we were taught that it was very much more?

As far as the wreck and salvage firm in question goes, there are three more sycophantic and obvious sock-puppets under this wreck-hunters' editorial.

UPDATE 9/6/11
I see Peter Tompa has a post saying its "none of their [our] business" what the Indonesians do to the historic environment. In the same way then he'd probably argue its none of anybody's business either what they are allowing to happen to the tropical rainforest habitats under the pressure of the paper pulp industry. Surely however conservationist attempts to combat commercial pressure on environmental resources relies on the expression of international concern, especially when foreign business interests are involved in the destruction. Mattel and the Asian Paper and Pulp forest plunderers (their website goes out of its way to represent them as environmentally concerned) and the Smithsonian and the Antipodean wreck plunderers are precisely the same type of problem.

Mattel has (for) now stopped importing pulp from these sources and investigating where it comes from and the environmental impact of its actions as a result of the protests. The Smithsonian is not changing its policy decision. Nobody's business, or shouldn't we be speaking out?

Vignette: Sock puppet advocacy for salvage firm?

Smithsonian Ponders Ethics of Showing Treasures

.
The Smithsonian has been planning to host an exhibition: “Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds", showing the contents of an Indonesian shipwreck discovered by fishermen off Belitung Island in Indonesia in 1998. The problem is that instead of being properly investigated in a multi-disciplinary project according to established methodology, this historically important shipwreck was commercially mined within a period of months by a commercial treasure hunter, and thus much of the information it might have provided about the ship’s crew and cargo was lost. This has been likened, even in the US, to modern-day cultural piracy (Kate Taylor, 'Treasures Pose Ethics Issues for Smithsonian', New York Times, April 24, 2011).

The exhibition was conceived by the government of Singapore, which owns the artifacts, and Julian Raby, the director of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian's two Asian art museums. It is on display in Singapore through July and will then travel internationally. Although the Smithsonian says it has not made a final decision, the exhibition — which includes glazed pottery, rare pieces of early blue-and-white porcelain and the largest gold cup ever found from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) — is tentatively set to arrive at the Sackler in the spring of 2012.[...] The ship, which is believed to be Arab, was filled with a cargo of ninth-century Chinese ceramics and gold and silver vessels. Its discovery suggests that Tang China had substantial sea trade with the Middle East; scholars had previously thought that the trade routes were primarily over land, along the Silk Road.

The company that salvaged the Belitung wreck, Seabed Explorations, is run by a German engineer, Tilman Walterfang, former director of a German concrete company who saw economic opportunities in wreck hunting in Indonesia.

when fisherman first discovered the shipwreck in early August 1998, the Indonesian government, fearful of looting, ordered Seabed Explorations to begin an immediate round-the-clock recovery operation. It started within days. Although Mr. Walterfang eventually brought in a pair of archaeologists, including one, Michael Flecker, who wrote two journal articles about the ship, Mr. Walterfang conceded that, from an academic standpoint, “the overall situation would without doubt be described as ‘less than ideal.’ ”[...] Seabed Explorations sold the majority of the 63,000 artifacts recovered to a company owned by the Singapore government, for $32 million [...] Some artifacts have ended up on eBay and other online sites.

On April 5th a group of archaeologists and anthropologists from the National Academy of Sciences — including Robert McCormick Adams, a former leader of the Smithsonian — wrote a letter to G. Wayne Clough, the director of the Smithsonian, that proceeding with the proposed exhibition would "severely damage the stature and reputation" of the institution. This opinion has been shared in recent weeks by the Society for American Archaeology, the Council of American Maritime Museums and the International Committee for Underwater Cultural Heritage, as well as groups within the Smithsonian, including the members of the anthropology department and the Senate of Scientists at its National Museum of Natural History.

The salvage firm's director Walterfang was dismissive of the exhibition’s critics, suggesting that the exhibition was being used as a “Ping-Pong ball in yet another political game for the social climbers in Washington, D.C.”. Archaeologist Flecker is reported as having argued that the "purist approach of many archaeologists" is simply

not practical in developing countries like Indonesia, where governments are poor and the risk of looting is high. In those circumstances, he wrote, archaeologists and commercial salvagers should cooperate “to document those sites and the artifacts recovered from them before too much information is lost.”

So a bit like an underwater Portable Antiquities Scheme then.

It will be interesting if the Smithsonian decide today not to host this ethically-questionable exhibition. If the haste and unmethodical manner in which they were excavated in our times is a criterion disqualifying Treasures from being exhibited in a proper museum, what are we to say of the hundreds of hoards and other finds hoiked out of the ground in Britain by metal-detector wielding treasure hunters? I wonder whether the Smithsonian will be seeking opinions form the British Museum and their Portable Antiquities Scheme and treasure Unit about their ethical dilemma?

Let's see if the Smithsonian allow a little thing like ethics to interfere with their exhibition plans.

An announcement on whether or not it will proceed with the show is expected in late May.