http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org daily 1 2007-11-14T16:18:33Z http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/the-gentleman-thief-who-took-a-leaf-out-of-the-british-library2019s-rarest-travel-books To staff at the British Library, the well-dressed Iranian gentleman was a regular and well-respected visitor to the private reading room where he studied valuable ancient texts. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-21T18:48:30Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/court-rules-painting-was-2018stolen2019-by-nazis federal appeals panel ruled yesterday that a painting owned by a German baroness that long hung on her walls in Rhode Island had, in effect, been stolen from a Jewish art collector during the Holocaust. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-20T10:38:56Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/spain-only-thing-to-discuss-with-u-s-firm-is-return-of-treasure ).- Spain's Culture Ministry said Tuesday that it had received "no offer of any kind" from Odyssey Marine Exploration to share $500 million in coins, adding that the only thing Madrid wants to discuss with the U.S. treasure-hunting firm is "the complete return of all the cultural wealth it plundered." No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-20T10:27:15Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/cleveland-museum-of-art-strikes-deal-with-italy-to-return-14-ancient-artworks In the first agreement of its kind between the Cleveland Museum of Art and a foreign government, the museum today agreed to return 14 artworks to Italy after officials proved that the objects had been illegally excavated or exported. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-20T10:26:04Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/us-museum-head-says-mexico-should-get-mayan-jade The director of Harvard's Peabody Museum said Tuesday he wants to return about 50 ancient carved Mayan jade pieces to Mexico, almost a century after a U.S. consul dredged the artifacts from the sacred lake at the ruins of Chichen Itza. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-20T10:20:46Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/the-stolen-past-west-bank-looting For a thousand years the ruins of Khirbet Tawas, a Byzantine jewel crowning a gentle slope planted in olive trees, stood southwest of Hebron. Graceful rows of columns stretched the length of the basilica, watching over the church's ornate mosaic floor. Then, in 2000, the second intifada struck with the force of an earthquake. As Palestinians fought Israeli troops, the West Bank became all but ungovernable. Soon the Israelis set up a web of security checkpoints, sealed off the region, and barred most Palestinians from working inside Israel. Jobless men looked for cash wherever they could find it. Armed with shovels, a small band descended on Khirbet Tawas. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-17T23:08:23Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/talks-start-with-south-korea-to-retrieve-stolen-dinosaur-fossils Authorities are refusing to pay two billion baht to a South Korean businessman for the return of 130-million-year-old dinosaur fossils smuggled out of the country five years ago. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-16T13:39:43Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/germany-returns-18-aborigine-skulls-home-1 German medical museum will return the skulls of 18 Australian | Aborigines | that were taken from the continent more than a century ago. | No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-15T21:38:56Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/fools-gold-how-stolen-ancient-artifacts-have-turned-up-in-famous-museums-around-the-world Early this year, officials at the Metropolitan Museum of Art trussed up one of the prizes of its collection, an ancient vase known as the Euphronios krater, and sent it back to Italy. Italian authorities had presented evidence that the piece had been looted from a tomb near Rome less than a year before the Met paid $1 million for it in 1972. Faced with the prospect of a lawsuit and a ban on receiving any future loans from Italian museums, the Met, writes former Washington Post and New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman, "stalled, stonewalled, and would not be swayed -- until it was forced to do so No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-15T21:15:41Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/germany-returns-18-aborigine-skulls-home | A German medical museum will return the skulls of 18 Australian | Aborigines that were taken from the continent more than a century ago. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-14T21:33:41Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/iraq-can-ancient-babylon-be-rescued Iraq: Can ancient Babylon be rescued? Now, for the first time, global institutions led by the U.N. are thoroughly documenting the damage and how to fix it. A UNESCO report due out early next year will cite Saddam's construction but focus, at the Iraqi government's request, on damage done by U.S. forces from April to September 2003, and the Polish troops deployed there for more than a year afterward. The U.S., which turned Babylon into a military base, says the looting would have been worse but for the troops' presence. The U.S. also says it will help rehabilitate Babylon, funding an effort by the World Monuments Fund and Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, but has yet to release precise funding figures. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-12T00:56:26Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/odyssey-marine-exploration-announces-third-quarter-2008-results OMEX 3.82, +0.13, +3.5%) , the world leader in the field of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, today filed a quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission detailing results of the Company's third quarter 2008. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-11T17:13:41Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/peru-hints-at-suit Yale and Peru edged closer to court over the weekend, as officials in the Peruvian government approved in principle the filing of a lawsuit against the University with the hopes of reclaiming Incan artifacts housed at Yale. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-11T01:16:04Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/loot-chicago-at-center-of-battle-between-archeologists-collectors A 4,000-year-old artifact turns up at O'Hare. Stolen property or museum piece? No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-09T21:19:11Z News Item http://www.culturalheritagelaw.org/news-issues/news-issues-in-cultural-heritage/does-collaboration-between-nigerian-and-european-american-museums-bring-us-closer-to-restitution-of-nigerias-stolen-looted-arts As readers may know, many Africans are very suspicious of collaboration with museums and institutions that have shown by their history and practice that they do not care much for the interest and feelings of Nigerians and Africans generally. In the article below by Tajudeen Sowole, a Nigerian art critic raises several issues concerning the cooperation between Nigerian museums and institutions with European/American museums. In particular, he wonders whether the collaboration between the Nigerian institutions and American/European museums in the recent exhibition Benin: Kings and Rituals-Court Arts from Nigeria has brought us closer to the restitution of the Benin artifacts or whether these objects will remain in Europe under the pretext that they are part of the universal heritage of mankind. No publisher gnurkin 2008-11-08T23:04:26Z News Item