The History Blog

In a break from the usual pattern, an art dealer who has chosen to remain anonymous put his freedom and career on the line to rescue an ancient Buddha statue looted from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul during the 1990s.

The rare 4-foot statue of Gandharan Buddha with flames coming off his shoulders and water flowing from his feet dates to the 2nd century A.D. It was stolen at some time during the civil wars after the fall of the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime in 1992 and had traveled the dark halls of the black market in antiquities until it was recently purchased by a Japanese private collector. A Japanese dealer sent our hero a picture of the statue and he immediately recognized it from his years of travel in Afghanistan. He even remembered exactly where it had been displayed in the National Museum.

He contacted the collector and told him that the piece had been stolen, begging him to return it to the museum. Appeals to giving a damn about the cultural heritage of a war-torn nation fell on deaf ears. The collector refused to give it up. Under Japanese law, owners cannot be prosecuted for purchasing a stolen artifact even if there’s concrete proof that the item was looted.

The UK, on the other hand, has laws against buying stolen goods, but faced with the prospect of this precious piece of Afghan heritage disappearing into a private collection forever, the British art dealer (heretofore known as BAD, like in BADASS) decided he had to take the risk of being arrested to save the Buddha and return it to Kabul where it belonged. He offered to buy the statue from the Japanese collector.

He told two people of his plan: Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum and St John Simpson, a curator. They sought legal counsel only to receive confirmation that there was nothing they could do to protect themselves. Getting mixed up in this deal was illegal and they could get in big trouble, despite their best intentions. They decided the public good was more important than holding to the letter of the law, so they supported BAD’s attempt to buy the statue. He spent a year negotiating with the collector, and finally he was able to secure the sale using only his own money.

There are no details in the article about how the artifact was imported, possibly because said import was technically smuggling, but whatever they did worked.

Simpson described the rescue as “terribly appropriate”, coming as it did on the 10th anniversary of the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan: “They’re gone forever. But one very important piece can be returned. This is a very important and stunningly beautiful piece.”

Omara Khan Massoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, described it as “one of our most treasured objects”. One source put the sculpture’s value at £600,000, but the British Museum said it is “without value, given its provenance”.

The Buddha is now safe in the hands of the British Museum where it will go on display Wednesday as part of its hugely successful Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World, which has been so popular the museum extended its run through July 17. The Gandharan Buddha will be returned to the National Museum in Kabul along with the rest of the exhibits.

A 14th century triptych depicting the Virgin Mary that was stolen from a private home in Goito, Italy (southwest of Verona) during a burglary in 1971 has been found at the J.B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. The Speed purchased it unwittingly from Newhouse Galleries, an Upper East Side New York art gallery, in 1973 for $38,000 and have agreed to return it to Italy.

Since then, it has gone on display at the museum off and on, most recently off. It hadn’t been exhibited in at least a decade when Homeland Security agents were alerted to its location by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage in Rome a few months ago. The feds aren’t saying how exactly the painting was traced to the museum or how it got from Goito to New York in the first place, but once the authorities contacted the Speed they immediately cooperated with the investigation and helped confirm that their triptych was in fact the one stolen in 1971. Specialists compared the work to pictures of it in the Goito home and identified it based on unique markings.

The small (1.6 feet by 1.9 feet) tempera-on-wood altarpiece depicts the Virgin Mary with Christ child in the center panel, Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria on the left panel, and the crucifixion of Christ and the annunciation on the right panel. It has been attributed to Florentine artist Jacopo del Casentino (b. 1297?, d. 1358), but there is still debate among art experts. Some people think it’s a 19th century work made in the style of a 14th century piece. Speed director Charles Venable isn’t convinced it’s Casentino’s, but the Italian authorities and the U.S. Attorney appear to be.

If it is Casentino’s work that’s a very big deal because right now the only other work known to exist by that artist is in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence. It’s another triptych of the Virgin Mary, in fact, called Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints.

The triptych was stolen from Lidia Bianchi Perdomini’s felicitously named home Villa La Giraffa (yes, that does mean Giraffe Villa) on October 2, 1971. Burglars cut through metal bars and a glass window, absconding with the triptych, paintings from the Venetian school and oils by realist painters Giovanni Fattori and Silvestro Lega, among others. The collective value of the stolen pieces was assessed at $33 million, and that was 40 years ago.

When the Speed bought it the piece was attributed to an unknown 14th century artist and given the small original sale price, the museum never bothered to insure the piece, not even for the $38,000 they spent on it, never mind for the millions it would be worth as a confirmed Casentino. They’re taking the hit, such that it is, with good cheer, though. Before they return the piece they will put it on display one more time in an exhibition called The Case of the Italian Altarpiece. The exhibit focuses on putting the painting in the context of the international art trade and will provide visitors with details on how the piece was researched and the history of ownership determined. It’s a neat idea that more museums who get busted with loot should emulate. The exhibit will be open from June 9th to sometime this summer (probably early July).

The Speed is a member of the Blue Star Museums program, a program that allows active duty military personnel and their immediate family members free admission to more than 1,300 participating museums in all 50 states between Memorial Day through Labor Day. If you’re a military family and in the area, take advantage of the opportunity. You can find other Blue Star Museums near you here.

After the final exhibit, as per the settlement drawn up between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Speed, the triptych will be returned to the Cultural Heritage Office of Mantova, Italy. Since the original owner is deceased, the Italian authorities will determine what happens next, if it will be returned to any of Perdomini’s heirs or put on public display.

Four objects looted from the Tutankhamun collection at the Cairo Museum on January 28 during the political unrest that toppled the Mubarak regime have been recovered, Zahi Hawass announced in a press conference on Tuesday. They were found by an employee of the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs in a bag in an Egyptian metro station, which I suppose is an improvement from being dumped in the trash.

MSAA public relations employee Salah Abdel Salam saw an unmarked black bag sitting unattended on a chair in Cairo’s Shubra Metro station during his daily commute. He didn’t think it was an explosive, so he (recklessly) looked inside and found a gold statue of King Tutankhamun looking back at him. He promptly picked up the bag and brought it with him to work.

“We brought back four pieces first, then 12 pieces after that and five pieces after that and four now. What we are missing now are only 33 objects, are mainly from the late period and I’m very happy to announce that this came to us this morning are very beautiful artefacts from the collection of Tutankhamen,” Hawass said.

There is some damage, especially to the gold statue of King Tutankhamun standing in a boat throwing a harpoon. The statue is missing a piece of its crown and pieces of its legs. The boat remains in the museum (it was never stolen in the first place). The figurine will be reunited with the base, restored and put back on display.

Another recovered artifact that will require some restoration is the top part of Tutankhamun’s fan. The decorative facade on one side of it is intact, while the other side has been broken into eleven pieces. Other parts of it remain missing.

The good news is one of ten missing ushabtis belonging to Yuya and Tjuya, Queen Tiye’s parents (Tiye was the mother of Amenhotep III, father of Akhenhaten, grandfather of Tutankhamun), was recovered in excellent condition. It does not need any restoration and will be returned to the museum exhibit immediately.

The final returned object is a gilded bronze trumpet and its wooden core. Both parts are in fine condition and ready to go back on display as well. This trumpet might have played a role in its own disappearance. According to legend, whenever someone blows into the trumpet, war breaks out. Zahi Hawass says that a museum staffer who was photographing and documenting the artifact had blown into it a week before revolution broke out. The same thing happened right before the 1967 Six-Day War and right before the 1991 Gulf War. Apparently not one of these blowers ever saw The Mummy.

Hawass declared at the press conference an amnesty of sorts for anyone returning looted artifacts. “If anyone is afraid of handing over such objects they can put it at the MSAA entrance gate or the Egyptian Museum’s door and we will take care of them,” he said. No civil or criminal charges will be filed, and in fact there may be rewards for returned antiquities.

Hawass also said that he has met with Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, head of the Supreme Council of Army Forces, and they have agreed to establish a security department dedicated to the protection of antiquities and archaeological sites. A force of armed guards will be trained specifically in the safeguarding of ancient objects and sites and will be assigned to museums, open-air sites and storehouses to prevent any further looting.

The ancient Roman site of Colonia Ulpia Traiana Ratiaria in northwestern Bulgaria has been thoroughly looted for the past 20 years. Huge holes pit its surface. Unemployed and with few other opportunities to make a living since the fall of Communism, people from nearby towns use the ancient site as their personal piggy bank, supported by an apathetic populace, a fatalistic (at best) police force and active organized crime rackets who bring in heavy machinery to dig up artifacts for sale on the black market. Experts estimate the profits derived from the underground trade in antiquities as equal to those derived from the illegal drug trade, and the antiquities business is far less dangerous to the criminals.

Sadly, there is virtually no police protection of Ratiaria and many other ancient Bulgarian sites; however, police have ramped up efforts to intercept looted artifacts before they disappear into private collections. This past February, an anti-organized crime raid in the town of Ruptsi found a mini-museum of Roman antiquities in the back yard of a local businessman, hidden behind a concrete privacy fence. He was widely known as someone who would buy from looters.

Among the finds were an almost complete, richly decorated Roman sarcophagus, columns, a carved altar stone, rare Roman glassware and a relief of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus. These artifacts are now on display at the National Museum of History in Sofia. This will be the first time a representation of the founding myth of Rome goes on display at a Bulgarian museum.

The highlight of the collection, containing some 100 pieces including exquisite examples of Roman sculpture and ceramics, is a marble sarcophagus from the first century AD, richly carved with garlands, floral ornaments, women’s faces and figures of death.

“The sarcophagus, with an early Roman inscription, is the most beautiful of its kind found in Bulgaria,” archaeologist Elka Penkova said.

Archaeologists have dated the rest of the seized items as from around the first century A.D. as well.

Learn more about Ratiaria and its near-destruction by looters on the Bulgarian Archaeological Association’s website. You can see actual looters in action raping the land in a story that aired on an Australian newsmagazine in 2009: Plundering the Past. Watch the whole thing.

In 1988 the J. Paul Getty Museum bought a larger-than-life-sized 5th c. B.C. Greek sculpture of a cult goddess (at the time referred to as Aphrodite, but later that attribution was found to be inaccurate) for a record sum of $18 million. The statue was so valuable because it was a very rare almost complete acrolithic sculpture, a sculpture where the face, hands and feet were carved out of marble or ivory and the body made out of wood or limestone that would be gilded or dressed with fabric for display. The bodies are usually long gone, so having the whole thing, plus the face, an arm and feet makes this a unique example.

The statue became the centerpiece of the Getty Villa museum in Malibu’s permanent collection. When the Getty bought it, however, they had to turn their necks all the way around like owls to avoid seeing the glaring evidence that it had been recently looted from Morgantina, Sicily, a former Greek colony and an extensive archaeological site that was poorly guarded and a prime target for thieves. Instead they claimed to believe the ludicrously false cover story that the goddess had been secreted away since the 1930s in a mysterious private collection in Switzerland, the Canadian girlfriend of provenances.

Finally, under pressure from the Italian government who had put Getty curator Marion True on trial and were loudly clamoring for the return of illegally exported artifacts, in 2006 the Getty hired a private investigator to trace the statue’s history of ownership, and the investigator found a number of photographs dating to the early ’80s showing the statue in pieces, fresh dirt still encrusted on her face, on a plastic tarp on a floor somewhere. So much for the Swiss collection from the ’30s. The investigators also found evidence linking the “collector” to a Sicilian smuggling ring.

Faced with this damning evidence, in 2007 the Getty board caved and agreed to return the goddess to Italy. (The year after that the LA Times revealed that the Getty had had a chance to see those same pictures a decade earlier, but they chose not to. Can you spell willful blindness, boys and girls? I knew you could.)

On Monday, they made good on the agreement.

The 7-foot tall, 1,300-pound statue of limestone and marble was painstakingly taken off display at the Getty Villa and disassembled in December. Last week, it was locked in shipping crates with an Italian diplomatic seal and loaded aboard an Alitalia flight to Rome, where it arrived on Thursday. From there it traveled with an armed police escort by ship and truck to the small hilltop town of Aidone, Sicily, where it arrived Saturday to waiting crowds.

The Getty also generously donated the custom-designed seismic base they built to support the statue. Since Sicily is as earthquake-prone as Los Angeles, the base will provide an important measure of security for the statue, allowing it to move gently along with the earth during tremors.

The sculpture will be put back together for display in the Aidone Archaeological Museum. A full-scale exhibit is scheduled for May.

On January 9th, 2010, thieves stole the alleged skull of medieval pirate Klaus Störtebeker from a display cabinet in the Hamburg Museum. The skull, still sporting the spike it was impaled on as a deterrent to any other would-be pirates, was one of the museum’s prized possessions. They offered a reward for information leading to its recovery and the Hamburg police investigated the theft for a year without success, reportedly following up on 67 leads.

Finally they hit the jackpot with the 68th. A middleman who is not a focus of the investigation handed over the skull-n-spike to the police earlier this week. The details are being kept nebulous intentionally because the investigation is still ongoing. On Thursday the police delivered it to delighted museum officials.

Next weekend, March 26-27, the museum will celebrate his return with a party. Admission will be free and Störtebeker experts will be available for guided tours. After the party the skull will be moved back to its original location now protected with a new alarm system and security guards. The cultural ministry gave the museum an additional €100,000 (about $140,000) to beef up their security measures, which were sorely needed since the display case that held the skull when it was stolen was protected only by a simple lock.

Although museum director Lisa Kosok considers the skull “Hamburg’s Mona Lisa,” it actually has never been fully authenticated as the skull of Klaus Störtebeker. It was found in 1878 on an island in the Elbe River during construction, the same island where Störtebeker and 30 of his crew were beheaded in 1400. The skull has been radiocarbon dated to the late 14th, early 15th century, so it certainly could be his.

Störtebeker (not his real name; it’s a nom de guerre meaning “empty the mug with one gulp,” apparently a reference to his legendary hollow-legged ability to swallow a four-liter pitcher of beer in one gulp) was a privateer initially hired to fight Danish ships and run supplies to Sweden. He and his comrades were known as the Victual Brothers. After the war, they decided to stay in business, only for themselves this time. Finally the Hanseatic League struck back, sending a fleet to capture Störtebeker and his cronies.

Centuries later he would be seen as something of a popular Robin Hood-like hero figure for his fight against the big-money Hanseatic League.

Federal agents from Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection officers confiscated two ancient Chinese artifacts that were being smuggled into the country through Newark Liberty International Airport. One is a 5,000-year-old prehistoric pot, the other a Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.) horse-and-rider figurine. Both are in excellent condition.

“The illegal trade of cultural antiquities is one that affects us all,” U.S. Customs Director Robert E. Perez said in the statement. He said the joint team is “dedicated to intercepting these items and ensuring their safe return to their rightful owners.”

Customs and Border Protection have seized five other stolen Chinese artifacts in New York and New Jersey just over the past year. The Chinese antiquities market is very hot right now thanks to the recent proliferation of moneyed Chinese buyers looking to reclaim cultural patrimony looted during foreign invasions and revolutionary fervor. It makes sense that the black market trade in smuggled stolen goods would be hot right now too.

Also, last year the United States and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding agreeing to step up efforts on both sides to stem the illicit trade in Chinese antiquities.

The trade agreement restricts the importation to the U.S. of cultural and archaeological materials from the Paleolithic through the Tang Dynasty (75,000 B.C.–A.D. 907), as well as monumental sculpture and wall art at least 250 years old. (A detailed list was published by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of the Treasury in the Federal Register on January 16, 2009.) Such archaeological material originating in China can only come into the U.S if accompanied by a valid export permit or other appropriate documentation from the Chinese government.

In addition to the import restrictions, the MOU requires that both countries take a number of steps. China, for example, pledges to expand efforts to educate its citizens about the importance of safeguarding its rich cultural heritage, to increase funding and other resources for protecting cultural heritage, and to block looted artifacts from entering the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, where much of the material currently comes onto the art market. The U.S. pledges technical assistance to China in protecting its cultural heritage. The agreement also outlines steps to foster loans to museums in the U.S., scholarly collaboration among archaeologists from both countries, and exchange of faculty and students. Both countries commit to educating their customs officers about cultural heritage and Chinese archaeological material. Both agree to share information that helps enforce applicable laws and regulations to reduce illicit trafficking in cultural property.

The New York Times reports that as of today, Zahi Hawass has resigned his position as Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities. The position and ministry were created by former President Hosni Mubarak to form part of a new putatively reformist cabinet, but since Hawass had been Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (in substance Egypt’s dictator of antiquities) for 20 years, it didn’t seem to alter his job description very much.

After Mubarak was deposed, Hawass became a target for protesters. Hundreds of unemployed archaeologists held a rally at the Ministry of Antiquities gates protesting the corruption and nepotism rife in the ministry. The tourism industry is a huge foreign cash cow for the country, protesters pointed out, but there is no public accounting of where it all goes.

Zahi Hawass gave intimations he might take this step in a phone interview on Tuesday when he said his ministry was incapable of protecting Egypt’s ancient sites and museums, a full 180 from his earlier statements downplaying the looting in the wake of the protests that brought down Hosni Mubarak’s government.

In a telephone interview he said that thieves on Monday had broken into two warehouses near the pyramids of Giza that held artifacts excavated in the early 20th century. It was not yet clear what had been taken. He said that the police were no longer protecting Egypt’s monuments and that his own staff was unarmed and unable to stop attacks.

“During the revolution nothing happened, but after the revolution many things are happening everywhere,” Mr. Hawass said. “People building houses, taking archaeological land, excavating at night — it’s like a nightmare, and I don’t know what I can do.”

The decision also comes in the wake of an allegation of misconduct far worse than self-promotional dishonesty. Apparently, Egyptian Manager of Antiquity Locations Nour el din Abdel Samad alleged in an interview (YouTube of interview in Arabic here, a translation that I can’t vouch for here) that Hawass had pocketed the money from fictitious building projects. He also suggested that Hawass covered up, and possibly profited from, thefts of artifacts from the Cairo Museum. He then tied it all together with some Zionist conspiracy stuff that is pretty unhinged, so who knows what’s fact and what’s fiction.

Hawass responded with a blog post in which he responded to the accusations by saying that they only strengthened his resolve to remain on the job.

Throughout this ordeal, there have been people who have been completely dishonest, and have tried, through their statements, to make the situation worse, in some cases by accusing me (in vague terms) of various inappropriate or even illegal behaviors. Of course, as even these people themselves know, none of these accusations has any basis in reality. When I was first appointed Minister of Antiquities Affairs, I thought my tenure might be very short, given the political situation. I did not care; I was only glad that the antiquities service had finally been given independence, and would no longer be under the Ministry of Culture. However, these attacks have convinced me that it is important for me to stay, so that I can continue to do everything in my power to protect Egypt’s cultural heritage. I have written to Egypt’s attorney general, asking him to look into some of the false accusations that have been made against me. I believe that addressing these issues will help stabilize the Ministry of Antiquities Affairs.

Today Hawass updated his blog again, only this time with a long list of damaged and looted sites that Egypt’s authorities have been unable to secure. He includes dire news of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s storage warehouse storing artifacts from the museum team’s excavation in Dahshur. Hawass reports it was attacked twice and that looters were able to overpower and tie up the guards. The news of his resignation followed.

Since Egypt’s prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, also resigned today, the army has asked the new prime minister, Essam Sharaf, to form an interim cabinet, of course including a replacement for Hawass. We’ll see how it all pans out.

Good news for tourism and the many Egyptians employed in the industry: Egypt’s archaeological sites and museums will re-open to the public Sunday, February 20th. In not so good news, though, looting and thefts during the anti-government protests were more prevalent than first realized.

Zahi Hawass has come under fire for claiming early on that no artifacts were stolen from the Cairo Museum during the break-in of January 28th. That turns out to have been false information since once museum curators did a complete inventory, 18 artifacts were found to have been stolen, including two gilded wood statues of King Tutankhamun and several other pieces from the Tutankhamun display.

The missing Heart Scarab of Yuya was recovered on the west side of the museum gardens, near the new bookshop. Wooden fragments belonging to the damaged New Kingdom coffin, still on the second floor of the museum, were also found in this area. The search team also found one of the eleven missing shabtis of Yuya and Thuya underneath a showcase. Fragments belonging to the statue of Tutankhamun being carried by the goddess Menkaret have been found; all the located fragments belong to the figure of Menkaret. The small figure of the king has not yet been found.

Dr. Hawass said it seems the looters dropped objects as they fled, and every inch of the museum must be searched before the Registration, Collections Management, and Documentation Department, which is overseeing the inventory, can produce a complete and final report of exactly what is missing.

Thankfully four of the 18 have now been recovered, including the most valuable piece: a limestone statue of the Tut’s father, Pharaoh Akhenaten making offerings to the gods. Akhenaten was reviled after his death and his memory erased — cartouches with his name and statues with his likeness were destroyed — so this is a very rare surviving statue.

It was found by a 16-year-old boy near a garbage can in Tahrir Square. He was there protesting against the Mubarak regime. When he found the statue, he brought it home and his mother called her brother, a professor at the American University in Cairo. The brother, Dr. Sabry Abdel Rahman, called the Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs and returned the statue last Wednesday.

It appears to be in good shape. Akhenaten was holding an offering table in his hands and that’s been removed, but the table was found earlier still on museum premises. This statue is slated to be the first piece restored.

Now for more bad news:

At Saqqara, the tomb of Hetepka was broken into, and the false door may have been stolen along with objects stored in the tomb. I have arranged for a committee to visit the tomb this coming Saturday to compare the alleged damage with earlier expedition photos. In Abusir, a portion of the false door was stolen from the tomb of Rahotep. In addition, break-ins have been confirmed at a number of storage magazines: these include ones in Saqqara, including one near the pyramid of Teti, and the magazine of Cairo University. I have created a committee to prepare reports to determine what, if anything, is missing from these magazines. The Egyptian Military caught and released thieves attempting to loot the site of Tell el Basta; the military also caught criminals trying to loot a tomb in Lisht. There have also been many reports of attacks on archaeological sites through the building of houses and illegal digging

Hawass is under a great deal of pressure right now, not just because of the damage and thefts, but also because there have been strikes demanding better jobs and decent pay, protests against his iron rule and corruption in the antiquities ministry. Although protesters asked for his resignation, Hawass has of course refused. “They say, ‘If you cannot give us a job, leave your job’—I cannot leave my job for some kids in the street,” he said. “If I feel one day that I’m not doing something good for my country, I will resign.”

German authorities have returned a 4,500-year-old Mesopotamian battle axe to Iraq. Although nobody is sure where exactly it was stolen from and what path it took out of the country, it was probably looted from an Iraqi museum or archaeological site in the chaos in the wake of the 2003 US invasion.

German authorities found the ancient axe in 2004 during an investigation into a Munich antiquities dealer and turned it over to the Roman-Germanic Central Museum (RGZM) in Mainz to determine its origin and age.

The museum found the decorated axe was from the Mesopotamian city-state of Ur, presently the site of the city Tell el-Mukayyar in southern Iraq.

Museum officials returned the axe to Iraqi Ambassador to Berlin Hussain M. Fadhlalla al-Khateeb.

The Munich dealer is not named in any of the articles, but there was a story a couple of years ago about a Munich dealer being busted with looted Iraqi artifacts in 2004. Perhaps this is the same scofflaw.

That article also points out that the Iraqi government was concerned about Germany becoming a hub for smuggled loot because they have such a high burden of proof that it makes it virtually impossible to prove in a court of law that an unprovenanced object was in fact stolen.

“Unfortunately, we have information that make it clear that Germany has become a hub for the illegal international art market and the authorities have not yet done enough to prevent it” [former Iraqi ambassador to Berlin Alaa Al-Hashimy] said. “The legal situation in Germany is very unfortunate for us. The burden of proof is too high, especially for objects stolen by grave robbers” he said. “Even an expert opinion with a probability of provenance of 95 percent isn’t enough for the courts. Only previously catalogued objects such as those looted from the National Museum in Baghdad can be easily determined to be stolen”.

Before 2009, only one artifact thought to be looted had been returned to Iraq and it too was an axe, as coincidence would have it. The fact that it took close to 7 years for the German government to go from confiscating this battle axe to returning it indicates that there is still a major bottle neck.