Culture
Africa growing into main scene of art robbery

afrol News, 11 August - As the global market for art product keeps booming, poor countries see their cultural heritage diminish from day to day. Several African countries, in particular Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Egypt, are becoming the scene of organised art looting. Ancient pieces of art suddenly "appear" in sale catalogues of renowned Western auction houses.

Have a look at the Internet pages of the London-based auction house Sotheby's. On 30 September, in a Paris auction, the renowned art trader will offer a "Benin brass plaque, ca. 1600." for sale. The estimated value is between euro 200,000 and 300,000. 

The Paris auction will offer "African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art from a private collection." The market for African art is international, with buyers and sellers from across the US, Europe, and Asia taking part in Sotheby's regular auctions. Sotheby's sales feature art works "made in the early 20th century or earlier for ritual or ceremonial use within the traditional cultures of sub-Saharan Africa," the auction house informs.

There is no particular reason to believe that these items offered at Sotheby's 30 September auction may have a dubious origin, something afrol News is not implying. There are, on the other hand, no guarantees the brass plaque from the ancient Benin Empire left Nigeria in a legal manner. In fact, when buying African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art, one has fewer ways of documenting the origin than when buying a European painting. And Sotheby's clearly states it is the responsibility of the seller - not theirs - to assure that pieces of art legally have been brought out of their country of origin. 

Valérie Jullien of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) however confirms to the Norwegian daily 'Aftenposten' that buyers often are led to purchase stolen African goods in renowned art shops and auction houses. "Only recently, one of the most known New York art traders was sentenced for having taken part in robberies in one of Egypt's historical areas," Jullien details. 

North Africa, with its rich cultural heritage - especially in the Nile Valley and along the Mediterranean Coast - has been a major scene of art robberies since pharaonic ages. Western robberies were initiated by Napoleon's "Egyptian Campaign" in 1798-99; the result is still to be seen in the Parisian Louvre Museum and in other European capitals. Art robbery was enhanced by colonisation, but has been somewhat controlled after independence in North Africa by culturally conscious governments. 

Poor West African governments however have less control over the theft of their cultural heritage. This fact - and the high status of art from the ancient empires of Ghana (8th to 12th century, in today's Mali/Mauritania), Mali (12th to 15th century, in today's Mali/Guinea/Senegal), Songhay (15th to 16th century in today's Mali/Burkina Faso) and Benin (16th to 1898 in today's Southern Nigeria) - puts the region increasingly in the focus of art looters.

Archaeologists complain that, in impoverished parts of West Africa, entire villages are involved in the theft and trade in items from excavation sites. Widespread corruption among civil servants further makes it easy to smuggle great quantities of ancient works out of the country. 

Kléna Sanogo from the Institute of Human Sciences in Bamako (Mali) says that the phenomenon of looting of cultural material from Mali "has grown progressively into a vast commercial enterprise which today has reached proportions which no-one would hesitate to call 'cultural genocide'."

In addition to the growing pull-factor of the international art market, Sanogo blames the "spectacular escalation in the looting of cultural material" on a missing existence of local conscience and pride in the region's cultural roots. Sanogo establishes "the fact that the idea of patrimony, developed around cultural material and archaeological sites in particular, does not correspond to cultural reality as experienced by the people concerned," i.e., the local residents. Unintentional destruction of cultural heritage was a problem equal to looting. 

Since the 1970s, art theft from the West African region has developed from occasional findings to an organised business. Earlier, local residents occasionally found jewels, beads, ceramics and other ancient art objects as they were exposed by tilling or erosion. These items were mostly sold locally. Now, archaeologically rich areas experience illegally organised collection, digging and even excavations. Sales channels have been established, and the most valuable items easily reach international markets. 

The illicit excavations of archaeological sites make up the "by far the most destructive and dangerous form" of intentional looting, Sanogo says. "Indeed, archaeological artefacts removed from context are forever dead to science," he complains. Jullien from ICOM agrees: "Especially in Africa, many of the old societies were totally or partially without written culture. The conservation of the material culture is therefore essential to document the history of Africa," he underlines.

The big interest for old West African art in the global market and the ease with which it is traded, however make up the backbone of the looting problem. Items from known robberies are openly available on the market, Patrick J. Darling from the African Legacy School of Conservation Sciences in the UK confirms. 

- In the 1980s, bronzes were being looted from Jenne in Mali, and fifteenth- to seventeenth-century material was being stolen and sold from Komaland in Ghana and from Bankoni in Mali, Darling names as examples. "Apparently, the Bankoni material still appears on the market, but Jenne bronzes are now difficult to find." The scale of these sales, however, was insignificant compared "the massive influx" into Europe in recent times of looted 2000-years-old terracottas from Sokoto in Northern Nigeria - stemming from the ancient Nok and Kwatakwashi cultures. 

Once looted, exported and sold in the West, these ancient items are almost impossible to recover. International law - i.e. the 1970 UN "Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property" - only in theory provides for the return of illegally exported cultural items. 

The big problem is that there are only 92 states parties to this Convention, and these mostly include those states where art theft historically has been a problem. Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali and Egypt are all parties to the convention, as are the Western states of Italy, Greece, Spain and France. The main markets, however, for over 30 years have refused to join the convention. Thus, looted African cultural heritage can be traded totally without risk in for example the US, the UK and Germany - as it is, on a daily basis. 

- Ultimately, this silent issue will have to be addressed, Patrick Darling demands. "If not, there will be nothing of cultural value left in Africa: and that would be to the detriment of the whole world."

Sources: Based on ICON, UNESCO, press reports, scientific articles and afrol archives

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