Looted art has been a consequence of looting during war, natural disaster and riot for centuries. Looting of art, archaeology and other cultural property may be an opportunistic criminal act or may be a more organized case of unlawful or unethical pillage by the victor of a conflict. The term "looted art" reflects bias, and whether particular art has been taken legally or illegally is often the subject of conflicting laws and subjective interpretations of governments and people; use of the term "looted art" in reference to a particular art object implies that the art was taken illicitly.
Related terms include art theft (the stealing of valuable artifacts, mostly because of commercial reasons), illicit antiquities (covertly traded antiquities or artifacts of archaeological interest, found in illegal or unregulated excavations), provenance (the origin or source of a piece of art), and art repatriation (the process of returning artworks and antiques to their rightful owners).
History
Art looting has a long history, the winning party of armed conflicts often plundering the loser, and in the absence of social order, the local population often joining in. The contents of nearly all the tombs of the Pharaohs were already completely looted by grave robbers before the invasion of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. There have been a total of seven sackings of Rome. The Old Testament includes several references to looting and to the looting of art and treasures; in the Book of Chronicles it is said: "King Shishak of Egypt attacked Jerusalem and took away the treasures of the Lord's temple and of the royal palace; he took everything, including the gold shields that Solomon had made",2 Chronicles. Chapter. 12:9. The NET Bible, New English Translation Bible (1996). Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. and in the Book of Jeremiah 15:11 the Lord says: "Jerusalem, I will surely send you away for your own good. I will surely bring the enemy upon you in a time of trouble and distress ... I will give away your wealth and your treasures as plunder. I will give it away free of charge for the sins you have committed throughout your land."Jeremiah 15:11. The NET Bible, New English Translation Bible (1996). Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. Other famous examples include the Roman Sack of Corinth in 146 BC, the Sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade, the Sack of Baghdad in 1258, Hernán Cortés and the looting of the Aztec gold. In only some of these was the removal of artworks for their own sake (rather than the value of their materials for example) a primary motivation.
Since the rise of an art market for monumental sculpture, abandoned monuments all over the world have been at risk, notably in Iran, Syria and Iraq, the old territories of Mesoamerican culture and Cambodia.Mydans, Seth. Raiders of Lost Art Loot Temples in Cambodia. New York Times, April 1, 1999, Section A, Page 4, Column 3, 1152 words
After the looting of Europe by Napoleon, others copied the institutionalized model of systematic plunder and looting. During the American Civil War, legal frameworks and guidelines emerged that justified and legalized the plunder and looting of opposing parties and nations. Henry Wager Halleck, a United States Army officer, scholar, and lawyer argued: "No belligerent would be justifiable in destroying temples, tombs, statutes [sic], paintings, or other works of art (except so far as their destruction may be the accidental or necessary result of military operations.) But, may he not seize and appropriate to his own use such works of genius and taste as belong to the hostile state, and are of a moveable character?"Halleck. International law, or, Rules regulating the intercourse of states in peace and war. Ch. XIX, Sections 10–11. (1861)
In July 1862, Francis Lieber, a professor at Columbia College, who had worked with Halleck on guidelines for guerrilla warfare, was asked by Halleck, now General-in-Chief of armies of the Union, to develop a code of conduct for the armed forces. The code of conduct, published as General Orders No. 100 on 24 April 1863, signed by United States President Abraham Lincoln, later became known as the Lieber CodeFrancis Lieber, LL.D. Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field . Originally Issued as General Orders No. 100, Adjutant General's Office, 1863, Washington 1898: Government Printing Office and specifically authorized the Armies of the United States to plunder and loot the enemy – a mindset that Hitler's armies copied one century later. The Lieber Code said in Article 36: "If such works of art, libraries, collections, or instruments belonging to a hostile nation or government, can be removed without injury, the ruler of the conquering state or nation may order them to be seized and removed for the benefit of the said nation. The ultimate ownership is to be settled by the ensuing treaty of peace."Hartigan, Richard Shelly, ed. Lieber's Code and the Law of War. Chicago: Precedent, 1983.Friedman, Leon. The Law of War: A Documentary History. New York: Random House, 1972. Russian and American forces relied on similar frameworks when they plundered Germany after the defeat of the Nazis.United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Looted Art. http://www.ushmm.org/research/library/bibliography/index.php?content=looted_art
The Lieber Code further defined the conditions of looting and the relationship between private plunder and booty and institutionalized looting "All captures and booty belong, according to the modern law of war, primarily to the government of the captor." (Article 45), "Neither officers nor soldiers are allowed to make use of their position or power in the hostile country for private gain, not even for commercial transactions otherwise legitimate." (Article 46) and "... [I]f large sums are found upon the persons of prisoners, or in their possession, they shall be taken from them, and the surplus, after providing for their own support, appropriated for the use of the army, under the direction of the commander, unless otherwise ordered by the government." (Article 72)
Massive art looting occurred during World War II; see art theft during World War II.
Looting of countries
Looting of Afghanistan Many art pieces and artifacts from Afghanistan were looted during several wars; scores of artworks were smuggled to Britain and sold to wealthy collectors. "There are also fears that the bulk of the collection once in Kabul Museum, ... is now in smugglers' or collectors' hands. The most famous exhibits were the Begram ivories, a series of exquisite Indian panels nearly 2,000 years old, excavated by French archaeologists in the Thirties (1930s)".Jason Burke. Looted Afghan art smuggled to London. The Observer. March 11, 2001 In November 2004, much of the missing collection numbering 22,513 items was found safely hidden. Over 200 crates had been moved downtown for storage at the end of the Soviet occupation including the Bactrian gold and Bagram Ivories.Carlotta Gall. Afghan Artifacts, Feared Lost, Are Discovered Safe in Storage. New York Times. November 18, 2004 Some 228 of these treasures, including pieces of Bactrian Gold and many of the Bagram Ivories, were exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from 25 May 25 to 7 September 2008.Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul . Nga.gov. Retrieved on 2011-06-12.
Looting of Cyprus Following the invasion of Cyprus in 1974 by Turkey and the occupation of the northern part of the island, churches belonging to the Cypriot Orthodox Church have been looted in what is described as "one of the most systematic examples of the looting of art since World War II".Morris, Chris. “Shame of Cyprus’s Looted Churches”. BBC News. 18 January 2002. Web. 9 February 2012. <https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1768274.stm>.Miller, Judith, & Stephen Kinzer. “Greek Orthodox Church Icons Ravaged in the Turkish Part of Cyprus”. The New York Times. 1 April 1998. Web. 5 March 2012. < https://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/01/world/greek-orthodox-church-icons-ravaged-in-the-turkish-part-of-cyprus.html?src=pm>. Several-high-profile cases have made headline news on the international scene. Most notable was the case of the Kanakaria mosaics, 6th-century AD frescos that were removed from the original church, trafficked to the US and offered for sale to a museum for the sum of US$20,000,000. These were subsequently recovered by the Orthodox Church following a court case in Indianapolis.
The northern part of the island is where the church and art looting was concentrated.“Cyprus History”. Byzantinefrescochapel.org. The Menil Collection. 2011. Web. 12 February 2012. < http://www.byzantinefrescochapel.org/cyprus-history/>. It is rumored that the Turkish-Cypriot leaders did not feel an obligation to preserve the artifacts and monuments in the north because they felt that the Greek-Cypriot government had oppressed them for too long.
Archaeological sites, museums, churches, monasteries, castles, libraries, and private art collections have all been affected by the looting of the northern area of Cyprus; icons, frescoes, archaeological artifacts, and cultural heritage have been stripped from areas around the island and have been taken to places all over the world or simply destroyed.Jansen, Michael. “The Pillage by Turkey of the 12,000 year old cultural heritage of Cyprus”. Europe’sWorld. Spring 2007. Web. 9 February 2012. < http://www.europesworld.org/EWSettings/Article/tabid/190/ArticleType/ArticleView/ArticleID/20454/Default.aspx>. Some believe that this has been done to 'Turkify' the northern region of the country and erase the characteristics of the Cypriot predecessors, while people like Aydin Dikmen have been working to make money off of cultural heritage artifacts by selling them in international markets.“Turkish Invasion and Cyprus Occupation”. Press and Information Office, Republic of Cyprus. CyprusNet.com. 2005. Web. 12 February 2012. < >.Rose, Mark. “From Cyprus to Munich”. Archaeological Institute of America. 20 April 1998. Web. 9 February 2012. <https://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/cyprus/>. It was one of the most systematic examples of the looting of art since World War II.Shame of Cyprus's looted churches
Non-Christian places of importance
Many non-Christian sites have been affected by the looting and destruction of northern Cyprus. During the time of the invasion, work on archaeological sites was halted. While the projects on the Greek-Cypriot southern area were started again after a short period of delay, the projects in the Turkish north were never started again. Many of the houses and workshops associated with archaeological projects in the north were looted, so the work that had been done was lost to the researchers.Nicolaou, Kyriakos. 1976. “Archaeological News from Cyprus, 1974”. American Journal of Archaeology, 80 (4):361-375. Many areas on the island of Cyprus were damaged by bombing and machine gun fire, and because of these issues, the pavement mosaics of the House of Dionysos in Paphos suffered extensive damage. The fighting not only was destroying Byzantine and Christian cultural heritage, but it was even destroying culture that had been in existence for far longer. There have been appeals filed with UNESCO, ICOM, and ICOMOS to help with the preservation of the remaining cultural heritage on the island, and a representative of UNESCO was appointed to help by 1976.
Looted religious sites and icons