Heritage Watch - Preserving the Past, Enriching the Future.

Reuters  (February 6, 2009)
A 2,000-year-old manuscript in Syriac, a dialect thought to have been  
spoken by Jesus, was found after police raided the house of a  
suspected antiquities smuggler. Experts have not yet reached a  
consensus on whether this, along with a small figurine, is an  
original or a fake, or whether they date back as far as 2,000 years.  
Nine people have been charged with smuggling, illegal excavation and  
possession of explosives.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5152HR20090206? 
pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Denver Post, Denver, CO (February 6, 2009)
  The Denver Art Museum recently employed a controversial new method  
called ‘fractional deaccessioning’ to purchase an 1892 painting by  
artist Thomas Eakins. In order to fund the purchase, the museum gave  
Denver collector and billionaire Philip Anschutz 50 percent ownership  
of the piece, in return for a monetary donation, as well as 50  
percent ownership in an important piece already in the museum’s  
collection, Charles Deas’ “Long Jakes.” The deal has drawn  
attention, particularly since it suggests that items in a museum  
collection could be sold to wealthy individuals for the right price.  
The museum’s director Lewis Sharp has argued that the museum could  
not afford to purchase Eakin’s work without fractional  
deaccessioning. Two committees from the Association of Art Museum  
Directors have conducted a review of the transaction and the  
organization’s board released a statement strongly discouraging  
member museums from using the same method to grow their collections.  
Sharp’s own statements have wavered on the topic, at first  
suggesting he would use this method again if need be and later  
stating the opposite. http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_11639503? 
source=email

The Copenhagen Post (3 February  
2009): The Danish ambassador to Italy, Gunnar Ortmann, met with  
Sandro Bondi, the Italian culture minister, several weeks ago, the  
latest event in ongoing negotiations between the two countries over  
artifacts in the Glyptoteket Museum in Copenhagen. In 2006, Italy  
requested the return of a half dozen Etruscan artifacts; in late  
2008, Italy requested the return of 100 artifacts believed to be  
illegally acquired. The museum has stated that many of the artifacts  
on the longer list were purchased after the museum personnel  
suspected of previous wrongdoing had left the museum. Some of the  
artifacts purchased by the museum during the 1970s went through the  
hands of Giacomo Medici (found guilty of dealing stolen goods in  
Italy in 2004) and Robert Hecht (currently on trial in Italy, along  
with the former J. Paul Getty Museum curator Marion True).
http://www.cphpost.dk/culture/122-culture/44647-ambassador-mediates- 
in-a-case-of-stolen-artefacts.html

Southern California Public Radio (2 February  
2009): The case involving smuggled Thai antiquities that were  
funneled through the Silk Roads Gallery in Los Angeles on their way  
to being donated to various area museums seems to have stalled  
somewhat after the death of the only person thus far charged in the  
case, the Thai antiquities expert Roxanna Brown. Although no one  
employed directly by the museums involved (the Mingei Museum, the  
Bowers Museum, the Pacific Asia Museum, and the L.A. County Museum of  
Art) has been charged, the raids have led to some changes in museum  
policies, including a wariness of “shady middlemen.” http:// 
www.scpr.org/news/stories/2009/02/02/08_museum_raids_020209.html