Thet Sambath of the Phnom Penh Post reports;
AN INVESTIGATION by Heritage Police at Preah Vihear temple suggests that the damage sustained during Friday's fighting was more serious but less widespread, than that resulting from an outbreak of violence last October.
"We have found 66 stones at the temple that were damaged by the Thai soldiers' shooting," said Colonel Om Phirum, the chief of the Heritage Police, in an interview with the Post Monday. "They were damaged by the bullets of machine guns."
During fighting last October, debris from M79 grenades damaged the temple in 120 places, Om Phirum said, though he noted that the bullets from machine guns during the most recent clashes inflicted damage that was more severe, creating holes that were between 1 and 10 centimetres wide and 1 or 2 centimetres deep.
Om Phirum criticised Thai soldiers for shooting the temple, saying, "They do not respect world heritage, and they disdain the world."
The investigation was conducted on Sunday and Monday. Om Phirum said the Heritage Police submitted a report on damage to the temple to the Council of Ministers and a complaint to the UN cultural agency, which listed the temple as a World Heritage site last July. He said the Heritage Police sent a similar complaint to UNESCO following the outbreak of violence last October, which he said prompted the body to launch its own investigation into the damage.
Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said Deputy Prime Minister Sok An sent a letter Friday to UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura asking him to intervene. Calls and emails to UNESCO officials in Phnom Penh and Bangkok went unanswered Tuesday.
Original story: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009040825268/National-news/Preah-Vihear-damage-significant.html
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SEVEN Angkorian artefacts smuggled into Thailand almost a decade ago will be returned to Cambodia, a Ministry of Culture official said Sunday, adding that negotiations are under way with Bangkok for the repatriation of dozens of other pieces.The artefacts - seven severed stone heads - are expected to be handed over during Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's visit to Cambodia, which is to begin Saturday.
They were among 43 pieces seized in 2000 as they were being smuggled into Thailand, said Srey Thamrong, an adviser to Prime Minister Hun Sen.
"The Thai culture minister will return seven pieces ... to Cambodia, and we will welcome [the artefacts] with a traditional ceremony before taking them into the National Museum," said Chuch Phoeun, a secretary of state at the Culture Ministry.
He added that Thailand had asked for detailed evidence that the pieces belonged to Cambodia, and the talks were ongoing for the return of the remaining artefacts.
"We are in a difficult situation because we have more than 2,600 temples, and at the time of the civil war there was no registration," Chuch Phoeun said.
"We did not know at the time what we were losing or where they were stolen from." Chuch Phoeun added that the return of the artefacts would help to improve ties between the two countries.
By Vong Sokheng (Phnom Penh Post) April 13, 2009
Original Story:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009041325360/National-news/Stolen-artefacts-to-be-returned.html
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April 2009
Dave Perkes for the Phnom Penh Post
After 1,000 years of abandonment to the jungle and looters, the temple city of Koh Ker is now getting the attention of restorers. The Angkor Foundation, based in Budapest, has just commenced a three-year program involving a small team of Hungarian archaeologists and environmental experts. A small survey team is working on a mapping project and work had already started stabilising hazardous structures.
Outside the entrance gopura of the pyramid of Prasat Thom lies an unstable laterite building which was in danger of falling down. This has now been temporarily stabilised by wood and brick. The moated area of the central sanctuary was cleared of vegetation in 2007, leaving unattractive piles of brick rubble. The brick sanctuaries have small areas of original stucco, but were in a very poor state. Some of the most unstable structures are now being shored up. The outlying Prasat Damrei, or Elephant Temple, had gaping cracks in the brickwork. Timber supports have enclosed the tower and the stone elephants within it. Nearby, at Ang Khna reservoir, a number of large ancient carvings including lizards, fish, snakes and crocodiles have recently been unearthed.
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EBay and the Illegal Looting of Antiquities
By Steven D. Levitt on the New York Times Blog
Archaeologists worry a lot about looting. Artifacts stolen from
historical sites fetch high prices on the black market, which gives
looters strong incentives to steal these items.
The emergence of eBay, therefore, was a nightmare for those who hated looting. Reducing transaction costs and making the market more liquid would certainly lead to more looting. EBay almost certainly had that effect in other markets, I suspect, like baseball cards and Beanie Babies.
So of course it would happen in antiquities as well, wouldn’t it?
Apparently, eBay had exactly the opposite effect on looting. It seems to have reduced it, or at least that is what this fascinating article from Archeology argues. The reason: whatever impact eBay had on the market for antiquities, it had an even bigger impact on the market for forged antiquities! The crush of faked artifacts had a sort of “lemons” effect on the illegal antiquities trade, with low-quality items driving out high-quality items. In addition, the bigger market gave forgers a stronger incentive to invest in high-quality fakes, to the point where now experts can have a hard time identifying the fakes. For instance, the author of the Archeology piece, Charles Stanish, writes:
In an antiquities store in La Paz, I recently saw about four shelves of supposed Tiwanaku (ca. A.D. 400-1000) pottery. I told the owner that most were fakes and she became irritated and called me a liar. So I simply touched one at a time, saying “fake,” “real,” “real from Tiwanaku,” “fake,” “fake made by Eugenio in Fuerabamba,” and so forth.
She paused for a moment, pulled one down that I said was real, and told me that it was also a fake. I congratulated her on the fact that her fakes were getting better and she just smiled. My mistake is an instance of what San Francisco State University archaeologist Karen Olsen Bruhns has identified as a very real problem — the experts who study the objects are sometimes being trained on fakes. As a result, they may authenticate pieces that are not real.
Even if you are not interested in antiquities, I suspect you will find
this piece fascinating reading.
(Hat tip: Larry Rothfield, who has a new book entitled The Rape of
Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum)
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(CNN) -- A Chinese man who bid nearly $40 million for a pair of controversial antique Chinese statues saidMonday he is refusing to pay for them Monday, state media reported.
Cai Mingchao, who works for China's National Treasures Fund, placed the winning bid by phone at a February 25 auction of artefacts once owned by fashion designer Yves St. Laurent, the Xinhua news agency reported.
"What I want to stress is that this money cannot be paid," Cai said at a news conference, according to Xinhua.
"Every Chinese would have liked to do like this at that moment, and I'm honored to have the chance to make the bid," Xinhua quoted Cai as saying.
"I did this on behalf of all Chinese people," he said.
It was not clear if he was acting on his own or with the authority of the Chinese government.
China said before the auction that the two pieces were stolen in the 19th century and should not be included in the auction. The two Qing Dynasty pieces, the sculpted head of a rat and a rabbit, date from the 18th century.
But Christie's auction house went ahead with the sale, stirring nationalistic passion among Chinese in and outside China.
The pieces sold for a winning bid of €31.49 million ($39.63 million).
Christie's declined to comment.
"We do not comment on the identity of our consignors or buyers, nor do we comment or speculate on the next steps that we might take in this instance," said a spokesman who declined to be named.
The auction of works from the Yves St. Laurent collection raised just over $483 million, Christie's said. That set a world record for a private collection sold at auction, the auction house said.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/03/02/china.relics/index.html
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