The History Blog

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.

Zahi Hawass has posted a statement on his website describing what exactly went down at the Cairo Museum and giving a brief overview of reports he’s received from his inspectors in other cities. I’m going to repost it here in its entirety because the Internet is still down in Egypt and its websites are not always accessible. In fact, Hawass had to do a fax relay just to get this statement posted on his site.

On Friday, January 28, 2011, when the protest marches began in Cairo, I heard that a curfew had been issued that started at 6.00pm on Friday evening until 7.00am on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, on that day the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, was not well guarded. About a thousand people began to jump over the wall on the eastern side of the museum into the courtyard. On the western side of the museum, we recently finished something I was very proud of, a beautiful gift shop, restaurant and cafeteria. The people entered the gift shop and stole all the jewellery and escaped; they thought the shop was the museum, thank God! However, ten people entered the museum when they found the fire exit stairs located at the back of it.

As every one knows, the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, is naturally lit and due to the architectural style of it, there are glass windows on its roof. The criminals broke the glass windows and used ropes to get inside, there is a distance of four metres from the ceiling to the ground of the museum. The ten people broke in when I was at home and, although I desperately wanted to go to the museum, I could not leave my house due to the curfew. In the morning, as soon as I woke up, I went directly there. When I arrived, I found out that, the night before, three tourist police officers had stayed there overnight because they were not able to get out before the curfew was put in place. These officers, and many young Egyptians who were also there, helped to stop more people from entering the museum. Thankfully, at 10.00pm on Friday night, the army arrived at the museum and gave additional security assistance.

I found out that one criminal was still at the museum, too. When he had asked the people guarding the museum for water, they took his hands and tied him to the door that lead to the gift shop so that he could not escape! Luckily, the criminals who stole the jewellery from the gift shop did not know where the jewellery inside the museum is kept. They went into the Late Period gallery but, when they found no gold, they broke thirteen vitrines and threw the antiquities on the floor. Then the criminals went to the King Tutankhamun galleries. Thank God they opened only one case! The criminals found a statue of the king on a panther, broke it, and threw it on the floor. I am very thankful that all of the antiquities that were damaged in the museum can be restored, and the tourist police caught all of the criminals that broke into it. On Saturday, the army secured the museum again and guarded it from all sides. I left the museum at 3.00pm on Saturday, 29, 2011.

What is really beautiful is that not all Egyptians were involved in the looting of the museum. A very small number of people tried to break, steal and rob. Sadly, one criminal voice is louder than one hundred voices of peace. The Egyptian people are calling for freedom, not destruction. When I left the museum on Saturday, I was met outside by many Egyptians, who asked if the museum was safe and what they could do to help. The people were happy to see an Egyptian official leave his home and come to Tahrir Square without fear; they loved that I came to the museum.

The curfew started again on Saturday afternoon at 4.00pm, and I was receiving messages all night from my inspectors at Saqqara, Dahsur, and Mit Rahina. The magazines and stores of Abusir were opened, and I could not find anyone to protect the antiquities at the site. At this time I still do not know what has happened at Saqqara, but I expect to hear from the inspectors there soon. East of Qantara in the Sinai, we have a large store containing antiquities from the Port Said Museum. Sadly, a large group, armed with guns and a truck, entered the store, opened the boxes in the magazine and took the precious objects. Other groups attempted to enter the Coptic Museum, Royal Jewellery Museum, National Museum of Alexandria, and El Manial Museum. Luckily, the foresighted employees of the Royal Jewellery Museum moved all of the objects into the basement, and sealed it before leaving.

My heart is broken and my blood is boiling. I feel that everything I have done in the last nine years has been destroyed in one day, but all the inspectors, young archaeologists, and administrators, are calling me from sites and museums all over Egypt to tell me that they will give their life to protect our antiquities. Many young Egyptians are in the streets trying to stop the criminals. Due to the circumstances, this behaviour is not surprising; criminals and people without a conscience will rob their own country. If the lights went off in New York City, or London, even if only for an hour, criminal behaviour will occur. I am very proud that Egyptians want to stop these criminals to protect Egypt and its heritage.

At this time, the Internet has not been restored in Egypt. I had to fax this statement to my colleagues in Italy for it to be uploaded in London on my website.

A quick update as I continue to be riveted by the events in Egypt: Zahi Hawass said on State TV that he examined the museum this morning and found that some looters had indeed broken in at some point last night before the building was secured.

“I felt deeply sorry today when I came this morning to the Egyptian Museum and found that some had tried to raid the museum by force last night,” Zahi Hawass, chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said on Saturday.

“Egyptian citizens tried to prevent them and were joined by the tourism police, but some (looters) managed to enter from above and they destroyed two of the mummies,” he said.

They ripped off their heads, to be precise. The mummies appear to have been from the Pharaonic period. The ticket office and gift shop were also stripped bare. I’m guessing looters were looking for cash and easily salable items, hence the focus on the museum administration rather than on the collection of 120,000 priceless ancient artifacts.

An AP camera crew allowed inside the museum reported seeing at least ten broken display cases and the artifacts they had contained scattered and damaged. All of them were found in the building, however, and Hawass is optimistic that the broken pieces can be restored.

The NDP building continues to burn, but firefighting crews are now handling the blaze. Hawass remains deeply concerned that the burning building could damage the museum if it collapses, and even if it does remain standing, between the fire, smoke and now water there are many ways the museum and its contents could suffer from the proximity.

Elsewhere in the country, other ancient sites and museums are also in peril. Hawass says the army has yet to answer his call to protect sites in areas where people have been evacuated. There have been local efforts to ensure the security of Egypt’s heritage. Authorities erected barriers and put guards around the temple of Karnak in Luxor, and there’s a ring of tanks, no less, around Luxor’s museum.

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo has found itself in a perilous location because of the anti-government protests that have rocked the country over the past few days. It is next door to the headquarters of the National Democratic Party in Tahrir Square, a focal point of protest. There have been reports of government buildings being looted, continuing explosions downtown and the NDP headquarters is burning with no firefighters on the way.

Unconfirmed stories emerged earlier today that people were attempting to break into the museum to plunder it. Al Jazeera’s live feed reported that thousands of civilian protesters formed a human chain around the Egyptian Museum to keep any would-be looters away. That story appears to be true.

The greatest threat to the Egyptian Museum first appeared to come from the fire enguling the ruling party headquarters next door on Friday night as anti-government protests roiled the country.

Then dozens of would-be thieves started entering the grounds surrounding the museum.

Suddenly other young men — some armed with truncheons taken from the police — formed a human chain outside the main gates on Tahrir Square in an attempt to protect the collection inside.

“I’m standing here to defend and to protect our national treasure,” said one of the men, Farid Saad, a 40-year-old engineer.

Another man, 26-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim, said it was important to guard the museum because it “has 5,000 years of our history. If they steal it, we’ll never find it again.”

Finally, four armored vehicles took up posts outside the massive coral-colored building in downtown Cairo. Soldiers surrounded the building and moved inside to protect mummies, monumental stone statues, ornate royal jewelry and other pharaonic artifacts.

It’s a beautiful thing, and a testament to the profound connection contemporary Egyptians have to their ancient past.

Unfortunately neither the army nor a human cordon can keep the museum from catching fire, so it’s still in urgent peril. The building doesn’t even have to catastrophically burn down for sparks and smoke to cause enormous damage to the precious antiquities within. Egypt’s dry climate means a great number of highly flammable ancient organic materials have survived the millennia. The museum is packed with wood furniture, papyri, ancient textiles, even food and, of course, human bodies. The golden death mask of Tutankhamun is a lot less danger than they are.

In 1985, at the peak of Culture Club’s fame, singer Boy George bought a gold-leafed Greek Orthodox icon of Jesus Christ Pantokrator. It hung in his home for almost 26 years. Then one fateful day a camera crew from a Dutch TV show filmed him puttering about in his north London mansion and Bishop Porfyrios, the Cyprus Orthodox Church’s representative to the EU in Brussels, just happened to be watching. In the background, hanging against the wall of a room that serves as George’s closet, he caught a glimpse of the icon.

The Bishop investigated further and found that it was indeed Cypriot in origin, that an icon of Jesus Christ Pantokrator just like that one had been looted from the Church of St. Charalambous in Neo Chorio, near Kithrea in northern Cyprus, in the chaos of the Turkish invasion in 1974. Many Cypriot artifacts were stolen then (and continue to be stolen now, for that matter), winding up in antiques shops all over Europe where dealers ask no questions but probably tell a lot of lies to whales like Boy George.

Bishop Porfyrios confirmed with the priest at St. Charalambous that the icon was indeed the 300-year-old Christ Pantokrator that had been stolen from the church 36 years before, then contacted Boy George to tell him about the piece’s true history. Boy George promptly offered to return it and on Wednesday he did so, officially handing the icon to the Bishop at the Cypriot church of Saint Anagyre, near his house.

Boy George – real name George O’Dowd – said he was “happy the icon is going back to its original rightful home”.

“I have always been a friend of Cyprus and have looked after the icon for 26 years,” he added.

“I look forward to seeing the icon on display in Cyprus for the moment and finally to the Church of St Charalambos from where it was illegally stolen.”

To thank him for his decentness, the committee of Saint Anagyre will invite Boy George and his family to be the guest of honor at the church’s name day celebration on July 1st. Composer and friend John Themis will also be invited, as he helped impress upon the singer the cultural importance of the icon to the Church of Cyprus.

Five men have been arrested on the Swedish island of Gotland for having stolen 1,000 Viking-era silver coins. The entire hoard from which the looters helped themselves to 1,000 coins was over twice that size: 2,000 German, English and Danish coins from the 1060s.

Gotland, a large island in the middle of the Baltic off the southeast coast of Sweden, is replete with Viking hoards. Sadly, it is also replete with looters who illegally dig up whatever treasures they can find, then sell them online or through shady dealers. Since there is so much ground to cover and the weather rarely cooperates to keep looted sites in CSI condition, not only do thieves often get away with it, but the thefts themselves are not discovered.

It was a fortuitous chain of circumstance that brought these scofflaws to justice.

Part of a crucifix from the 11th century was found in the ground where the looters dug. Several days later, an email was discovered by chance with a photo of a part of a crucifix.

A comparison of the find and the image showed that the parts belonged together and that the crucifix came from the hiding place in the field in Gandarve.

“The person who had sent the email was suspected of having attempted to sell the crucifix and he led us on to another person with ties to Gotland,” said prosecutor Mats Wihlborg.

During a raid on a property on Gotland, investigators came across three people with metal detectors, shovels and backpacks. After examining computers and GPS equipment, they also found links between the defendants and two other places where the looters had struck on Gotland.

The looters will be charged with preparation of aggravated crime against relics and aggravated crime against relics. The charges carry a potential sentence of four years in prison. Three of the defendants are thought to be the ringleaders responsible for multiple thefts. The prosecutor is delighted. He noted that it’s extremely rare for cases to actually reach the point of prosecution, and especially not of a full-on looting ring.

Looters are not just hobbyists who stumbled on a treasure and decided to keep it or even sell it on the down low. They are organized, experienced and well-versed in the geography of the island. They often operate at night to avoid detection, and they’re damn good at it. That’s why these arrests are so important to the Gotland authorities.