Stolen History Exam 1

Athens, Greece

Where is the Acropolis located?

High City

What does Acropolis mean?

447-432 BCE

What are the dates of the construction of the Parthenon?

They kept very detailed record for how much they paid for stone and for workers

How do we know such precise dates for the building of the Parthenon?

1) Pediment

2) Metopes

3) Frieze

What are the three kinds of sculptures that make up the Parthenon?

Triangular space and highest point

What are Pediments?

Pediments

What kind of sculptures are represented by the “green” color?

Metopes

What kind of sculptures are represented by the “red” color?

Frieze

What kind of sculptures are represented by the “yellow” color?

Squarish sculpted panels in the front of the Parthenon

What are Metopes?

Each cardinal direction depicts a different battle

What is unique about the Metopes?

Gods vs Giants

What battle is depicted on the Eastern Metopes?

Greeks vs Trojans

What battle is depicted on the Northern Metopes?

Greeks vs Amazons

What battle is depicted on the Western Metopes?

Lapiths vs Centaurs

What battle is depicted on the Southern Metopes?

Continuous long band of sculptures that runs around the inner set of columns in the temple

What is the Frieze?

Debated, but considered to represent the Panathenaic Procession

What does the Frieze depict?

Celebration of Athena where the purpose is to make sacrifices to her and give her a new dress

What is the Panathenaic Procession?

Thomas Bruce (7th Earl of Elgin)

Who is responsible for parts of the Parthenon arriving to the British Museum?

Ottoman Empire at the time gave Lord Elgin to take pieces

How was Lord Elgin able take pieces from the Parthenon?

An Athenian alliance with other sea born city states to stand against Persia where they pooled money, ships, and materials

What was the Delian League?

Possible Athens embezzled Delian League funds to build the Parthenon

What’s the possible controversy over the construction of the Parthenon?

\-machy

What suffix is used to describe “the battle of”?

Gigantomachy (Gods vs Giants)

(Greek) What is shown on the East Metope?

Centauromachy (Lapiths vs Centaurs)

(Greek) What is shown on the South Metope?

Amazonomachy (Greeks vs Amazons)

(Greek) What is shown on the West Metope?

Sack of Troy (Greeks vs Trojans)

(Greek) What is shown on the North Metope?

He was interested in decorating his mansion and also wanted to sell antiquities to pay off his debts

Why was Lord Elgin so interested in antiquities?

They looked down on Elgin for taking the marbles

At the time when Lord Elgin took the marbles, how did the English upper class look upon him?

British government financed the shipping of the marbles

How was Lord Elgin able to transport the marbles from Greece to Britain?

1970

What year was the first UNESCO Convention?

Series of individual laws passed by specific countries (especially those where artifacts were rich) saying items found in their boarders belonged to them

Before the UNESCO Convention in 1970, what kind of artifact laws were in effect?

Idea was to establish disincentives for looting to keep people from raiding historical sites

What was the main idea of the 1970 UNESCO Convention?

Antiquities discovered on private property belong to the owner of the property and not the state (while antiquities found on public land do belong to the state)

What is unique about America’s antiquities laws?

Established that the President can declare places National Monuments thereby protecting the land and anything discovered there

What did President Teddy Roosevelt do that is important for antiquities?

Before this there weren’t many people to enforce these laws so people were getting away with looting even though there were laws against it, and international agreement was important to get it to work and have countries enforce the laws

Why was the UNESCO Convention important?

America is more of an antiquities buyer than they are a seller, yet they were at the lead for international laws restricting the selling of antiquities

Why was it curious that America was so invested in the UNESCO Convention?

Each country has to pass their own laws to make the convention work, so each country has to get it up and running on their own

What were the weaknesses of the UNESCO Convention?

Enforced by the Cultural Property Advisory Committee (CPAC) whose jobs is to block antiquities from some countries but not others

Who in America enforces the UNESCO Convention?

Looting is a common practice in the country so the item has unclear provenance or if a country is in a period of active war (looting becomes much more accessible)

Why would America block the import of antiquities from a specific country?

Enter bilateral agreements (refers to an agreement between parties or states that aims to keep trade deficits to a minimum) with other countries

How (through what) does America enforce UNESCO?

Warning sign that it is looted, because after 1970 unless an artifact has a great story ancient artifacts should have clear provenance

What is the problem with ancient artifacts that come into collections after 1970?

3rd Century BCE

What is the date of the famous Morgantina Silver?

Looted items came from the ground which means no one has seen them for hundred or thousands of years before then

Why is it so difficult to prove if items were stolen?

Found looters in the area and got eyewitnesses to cooberate that they looted silver

What trick did Italy use to prove the Morgantina Silver was looted?

Looters identified an image of Scilla (mythological Greek monster)

What mythological creature was identified by Morgantina looters?

Archeologist who went to Morgantina excavation site and found a coin that fell out of a looters pocket dated to 1978, which means the looting happned after 1978 (hit the market in 1981, so looting happened between 1978-1981)

Who is Malcolm Bell?

Artifacts went back to Italy for 4 years, then back to America for 4 years in a constant cycle til 2046

What was the ultimate fate of the Morgantina Silver, starting in 2006?

Island of Sicily, Italy

Where is the city of Morgantina located?

Usak region of Turkey (Western Turkey)

Where was the Lydian Hoard discovered?

6th Century BCE

What is the date of the Lydian Hoard?

The MET purchased them in the late 1960s and purposely mislabeled them (because they were stolen) by saying they were Eastern Greek instead of from Turkey and they held them in their basement for 20 years so they could claim the statue of limitations was up once they were displayed

What was the controversy surrounding the Lydian Hoard?

Returned to Turkey in 1993

In the end, what happened to the Lydian Hoard?

Perge (Western Turkey)

Where was the Upper Half of Weary Hercules found?

2nd Century CE

What is the date of the Weary Hercules?

Shows him after the last of his 12 big labors where he collected golden apples (behind is back in many depictions)

What is the context behind Weary Hercules sculpture?

Upper half appeared on the art market in 1980, while the lower half was properly excavated in 1980. But Boston MFA did not want to return the upper half even though a cast was made of the upper half and it fit perfectly with the lower half. MFA then claimed it wouldn’t return it because you couldn’t prove it did not break in ancient times or that the sculpture was in someone’s attic for all that time.

What was the controversy around the Weary Hercules?

Returned to Turkey in 2011

In the end, what happened to Weary Hercules?

Petrie and Maspero convinced the Egyptian government that no one wanted the stuff they were taking anyways

Initially, how were objects able to be exported out Egypt when the export was considered illegal?

Small finds (trinkets, brushes, scarabs, pins, coins)

What were the first things that Petrie was able to export out of Egypt?

He thought that by paying close attention to the small things we could discover a lot about past cultures

Why was Petrie interested in the small items?

Smaller museums that could not get their hands on larger items found the small items much more valuable because they were more attainable

To whom were these small finds valuable too?

They were a diplomatic gift from the Khedive of Egypt

How did Britain get its hand on their first large Egyptian sculptures?

1) granite falcon with inscription naming the Pharaoh Ramses II

2) human figure with inscription of Osorkon II

What were the actual first large Egyptian objects to go to the British Museum?

Him and his men discovered the Rosetta Stone

What is Napoleon’s connection to Egyptian artifacts?

Has 3 languages (Greek, Demotic, Heiroglyphs) on it and allowed for the deciphering of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs

What is the significance of the Rosetta Stone?

They leave the office in the charge of France because France has government funding for excavations while the British did not

What happens to Egypt’s office of antiquities once Britain takes over Egypt as a colony?

America did not feel they had their own culture because they were so young as a nation, so they felt they could tie themselves to another places deep history

Why does America become so interested in Egyptian artifacts?

Reverend William Copley

Who founded the American branch of the EEF?

Interested in the possible biblical connections that could be discovered through archeology in Egypt

Why was Copley interested in Egypt?

Ramses II

During whose reign is the Exodus story set?

Ramses II because of his connection to Exodus

What Egyptian figure caught the imagination of Americans?

Large statue from Tell Nabasha that made its way there thanks to the EEF

What was the first Egyptian sculpture to make it to America?

Pairs of tall structures that mimicked the rays of the Sun

What are obelisks?

Egyptian obelisk that was gifted to America and is now in NYC

What is Cleopatra’s Needle?

A spectacle was made of mummy unwrapping’s in Britain and sometimes America where mummies were shown in theaters or educational spheres

What was the deal with mummy unwrapping’s in the 19th century?

Individuals would fly to Cairo to buy antiquities from markets

How did Americans acquire Egyptian artifacts in the early 19th century?

Obelisk

What kind of sculpture is the Washington Monument?

Egypt: in the form of an Egyptian obelisk

Greece: One of the blocks comes from the Parthenon and was a gift from the Greek government, the block says “To George Washington” in Greek

What are the Egyptian and Greek connections to the Washington Monument?

Equal 50-50 splitting of artifacts found at a location where the country it is found in gets 50% and the country leading the excavation gets the other 50% and items are split in a draft style

What is partage?

Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Cypress

What countries specifically used partage?

Akhenaten

Who was the controversial Pharaoh who tries to change the Egyptian religion from a pantheon of Gods to one Sun god?

Akhetaten

What was Akhenaten’s capital city?

Tell el-Amarna (on Nile near Red Sea)

What is modern day Akhetaten?

1st) Government officials choose “Stele of Akhenaten and His Family”

2nd) Borchardt picked the “Bust of Nefertiti”

What were the first and second picks in the partage of Lefebvre’s excavation in 1913?

Ludwig Borchardt

Who was the person/field director that actually picked out the “Bust of Nefertiti” during the partage of its excevation?

James Simon (he then gave all of the finds to the Berlin Museum)

By contract, all finds allotted to the party of Berlin in Lefebvre’s excevation in 1913 were to go to which person?

Caligula

Which Roman emperor brought an Egyptian obelisk to Rome in 40 BCE?

No hieroglyphs on it

What was unique about the obelisk brought to Rome from Egypt in 40 BCE?

Augustus

What other Roman emperor brought an Egyptian obelisk to Rome in 10 BCE?

13th century BCE

What is the construction date of the obelisk brought to Rome by Augustus?

Rome had conquered Egypt (Augustus beats Marc Anthony)

Why was there an influx of Egyptian artifacts and Egyptian-like sculptures in Rome after 31 BCE?

First professor of archeology at the Tokyo Imperial University. And importantly established archeology by Japan for Japan.

Who was Shogoru Tsuboi?

An expert on shells who went to visit Japan and ended up staying there for 3 years.

Who was Edward S. Morse?

Edward S. Morse

Who introduced New England to Japanese culture?

Edward S. Morse

Who is primarily responsible for the great museum collections of Japanese pottery in America?

Morse excavated the Omori Shell Mounds and believed to have found evidence of cannibalism which Tsuboi found very offensive

What did Edward S. Morse do that Shogoru Tsuboi found offensive?

Omori Shell Mounds

What famous site in Japan did Morse excavate?

First professor to teach an archeology course at Kyoto Imperial University. And was pivotal to getting Egyptian artifacts to Japan (near 500)

Who was Kosaku Hamada?

Kosaku Hamada

Who was the first person responsible for importing Egyptian artifacts into Japan?