Antiquities Whistleblower Oscar White Muscarella
27 December 2005
The Whistleblower & The Politics Of The Met's
Euphronios Purchase: A Talk With Oscar White
Muscarella
By Suzan Mazur
Related Stories:
Bob Hecht, The Younger
Sotheby's & The Signed Euphronios
The Provenance Of Bob Hecht
Euphronios Ancient Art In Court
A Preview Of Bob Hecht's Memoirs
"[Dr. Oscar White] Muscarella's
loyalty was ill rewarded. Half a year earlier, he had
responded to [Metropolitan Museum trustee/ former US
treasury secretary C. Douglas] Dillon's invitation to the
staff to address any grievances to him. He wrote a long
letter decrying the wretched professional and economic
status of the curators - as a seasoned and much-published
archaeologist, he was getting $11,500 a year - and he
begged that the staff be granted academic freedom and a
voice in policy similar to those accorded most university
faculties. Dillon passed the letter to [Met Director Tom]
Hoving, who was not pleased. Ultimately, Muscarella was
dismissed three times. Unlike a score of others who
resigned by request or were laid off, he stayed on through a
civil suit [which he won]."
- John L. Hess, The
Grand Acquisitors
I first met
Metropolitan Museum ancient Near East expert Oscar
Muscarella in the late 1980s. I went to see him at his
office to discuss some safety pins or "fibulas" which had
turned up in a couple of tumuli in southwest Turkey along
with other artifacts that Turkish archaeologists identified
as Phrygian.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Phrygians -- King Midas's people -- were
master craftsmen and the objects just found appeared to
belong to a royal Phrygian family: a silver belt with a
fibula-like catch, iron dagger with gold reliefs on the
handle, two griffins from a bronze caldron, a fertility ring
with phallus-shaped knobs, and statuettes - one of
Anatolia's mother goddess Kybele in ivory and another in
silver of a eunuch priest. The Met's controversial Greek
and Roman chairman Dietrich von Bothmer told me he
considered the statuettes "masterpieces" and "purely
Phrygian."
King Midas's legendary "golden touch" it seems
may simply have been his ability to build a confederation,
one of the most important civilizations in western Asia in
the eighth century B.C. Known for its art.
Muscarella
confirmed the pieces were late eighth or early seventh
century B.C. This meant that the map of ancient Asia Minor
might have to be redrawn (plus the dates on East Greek art
changed), since the tombs were much further south than the
known borders of Phrygia in central Anatolia.
In the late
1950s, Muscarella excavated in the former Phrygian capital
of Gordion near present day Ankara, and after that, directed
or participated in digs in Turkey at Alishar, Ayanis and
Cadir Hoyuk, as well as in Iran at Hasanlu, Agrab Tepe, Se
Girdan and elsewhere.
Caption: Oscar White
Muscarella digging at Agrab Tepe, Iran in
1964
It was summer when we first met, and
the highly animated, classically handsome and somewhat
excitable Muscarella was dressed in his trademark blue
seersucker suit and ascot (in winter it's tweeds). But
don't let the ascot fool you, he's still got the New York
neighborhoods in his voice and can spot a phony, not to
mention a fake, a mile away.
I've called on him since for
comment, but only recently got around to discussing the
Euphronios "hot pot", which was bought by the Met in 1972
when Tom Hoving was director, and is about to be repatriated
to Italy. Muscarella was fired for opposing the purchase
and fought and won a court case resulting in his
reinstatement at the museum (but with a less prestigious
title).
I stopped by the museum recently to discuss the
contested vase painted by the Athenian master 2,500 years
ago and to see what Oscar had to say about the antiquities
trial unfolding in Rome involving dealer Bob Hecht and
former Getty museum curator Marion True.
Muscarella is
also author of the book: The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of
Ancient Near Eastern Cultures and others.
He
insisted we meet outside his office, in the cafeteria, so
everyone who wanted to see could see that he was giving a
media interview. There is a gag order in place about such
interviews from Met director Guy-Philippe Lannes de
Montebello, who has written to Muscarella
warning:
"Dear Oscar. . .the Museum has
long had an express policy for members of the staff when
they are approached by the press. Staff is directed to
refer and coordinate all inquiries to the Communications
Department, formerly Public Information (See General
Regulations I, I.) You did not follow this policy, nor did
you at any time inform the Communications Department that
you were speaking to the press. . . . Every member of the
staff is expected to follow the rules and regulation of this
institution. Further I expect the staff to conduct
themselves in a professional manner including upholding the
integrity of their colleagues. You did not adhere to the
Museum rules and in addition the statements you made to the
press are in disregard of the truth. Under all of these
circumstances, you should consider this a formal letter of
warning. Any recurrence of such conduct or other future
disregard of the Museum's regulations will be dealt with
more severely. Very truly yours, Philippe de Montebello"
/blockquote>
The interview follows:
Suzan
Mazur: Let's address the "latest debacle" over the
looting of ancient art from Italy, as New York Times
art critic Michael Kimmelman ("Regarding Antiquities, Some
Changes, Please",12/8/2005) terms the current Rome
antiquities trial in which Bob Hecht and Marion True are
charged with trafficking antiquities. What's the problem
with the NYT taking the high road as in the Kimmelman piece
and moralizing about what should be done to stem the flow of
looted antiquities across borders and into museums like the
Met?
Oscar White Muscarella: Well you say he takes
the high road. I say he takes the low road. This article is
one of the most hypocritical and unprofessional things I've
ever come across even for the New York Times, because
what it establishes is that Kimmelman has gladly accepted
the role of pimp - from line one of the story - from
his boss Arthur Ochs Sulzberger.
It's a role that goes
back to his colleagues, Grace Glueck and John Canaday, and
continued by all their New York Times colleagues and
successors. The only honest Times reporters I've come
across - there were two in the last 35 years - Nicholas
Gage and the late John Hess.
Ask boss Arthur "Punchy"
Sulzberger [former publisher of the NYT] why he and his
trustee colleagues at the Met have issued the order via his
employee, Le Comte [The Count] Philippe Lannes de
Montebello, that no staff member can speak to reporters. He
knows that I have not and will not obey this order.
What
Kimmelman doesn't mention, which is so manifest in this
article about museums buying stolen art, is that he's an
employee of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Senior ("Punch"). [The
Times is a family-run newspaper even though Sulzberger
junior ("Pinchy") is technically now the publisher.]
That
Kimmelman's boss is a member of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art board of trustees for decades. And for decades has been
a member of the museum's acquisitions committee. And that
Kimmelman's boss was one of the most active and enthusiastic
purchasers of the Euphronios vase.
That Sulzberger used
his position as owner of the New York Times to accord
the vase unprecedented publicity in the 70s. And not only
that. Punchy has been an active supporter of world plunder
and thefts for decades.
Kimmelman by not mentioning that
he's an employee of this man, Sulzberger - takes a salary
from him - hypocrisy is the wrong word, dishonest is
the correct word.
SM: So you don't agree that the
Met, the Cleveland museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston, for instance, "bring together cultures from around
the world" and "act as safe houses for civilization," as
Kimmelman argues. Do you agree with that?
OWM:
Agree with it? It's the very opposite. How can you employ
people, encourage people to destroy a tomb? A site? I have
been walking around the Near East for years. And I can tell
you in Turkey, in Iran, Greece, wherever you go, you see
holes in the ground. Dynamite. Battering poles.
Bulldozers. All the objects are removed, sent to the
various dealers who smuggle them out of the country of
origin, all to be sold to these museums you mentioned and
many others, including university museums.
Don't forget
that the university museums -- Harvard, Princeton, Missouri,
Indiana are major plunderers and destroyers of the planet's
history along with the others. Presidents of university
museums that purchase plundered art should order all their
staff to cease purchasing and receiving on loan any
antiquity, or advise or authenticate any possessor of
antiquities.
SM: Kimmelman is saying that countries
like Italy, Turkey and others simply cannot always provide
the same protection and care as the American museums can -
you know, the "Elgin Marbles argument".
OWM: Isn't
that wonderful. American bordellos also give care and
sanctuary to kidnapped women from Yugoslavia, Ukraine,
Greece, South Africa and China, don't they? They take these
young girls. They kidnap them. Put them in chains and send
them to bordellos in America. They give them protection,
don't they?
Do you blame the person whose apartment is
burglarized - do you blame them for the burglary?
Would
Kimmelman and collector and Met trustee Shelby White
consider the action "disputed" if their apartments were
broken into and robbed? It should be emphasized that these
people are lying.
SM: Kimmelman also talks about
"a fair compromise," where say the Metropolitan Museum of
Art would have long-term use of say Italy's disputed
treasures in return for the Italians reclaiming
ownership.
OWM: A fair compromise! Would
Kimmelman and Shelby White accept as a fair compromise that
the tombaroli have permission to keep stolen items from
their apartment for long-term loans? Kimmelman speaks for
his boss.
SM: Kimmelman is saying that it's "better
for an ancient pot dug out of some farm in Sicily to end up
in the museum like the Met". There he says it can be
studied and widely seen -- rather than "become booty in
some billionaire's safe in Zurich, Shanghai or
Tokyo".
OWM: Is that right? There's no difference
between Punchy Sulzberger and Le Comte Philippe de
Montebello and all the others on the Met board of trustees
who've been supporting theft and plunder for years. And all
those collectors. The object should stay in the ground
until it's excavated scientifically where people spend years
on a site and document every single object found and its
context. That's how we know about our ancient history.
But what these people are doing is utterly destroying
documentation of our human past. All the names I mentioned,
all the museums are actively engaged in erasing this
planet's history. Like Dietrich von Bothmer was quoted as
saying, a pot's a pot. [von Bothmer said, "A cup is a cup"
regarding the Euphronios wine cup, which is now in tiny
pieces in a cardboard box in Italy, following its looting
and laundering in America's ancient art
market.]
SM: Aside from greed, is there an ulterior
motive?
OWM: Lust. Power. Greed. All these people
are rich people.
SM: Do they want to destroy the
planet's history? Is it being done
intentionally?
OWM: In some cases that's correct.
I write about this in my book The Lie Became Great. I see
it as a sick collaboration. If you look at the language. "I
had to have it. A lust for antiquities." Collecting
antiquities is rape.
With all the euphemisms of the
Kimmelmans, Le Comte Philippe and the Sulzbergers, it's
rape. All these people are justifying their destruction,
their power to have these objects in their apartment. Bring
their guests in and say "Golly gee look what I have!".
Power and perversion of the wealthy. These are the people
who are encouraging it. Who are authorizing it. Who are
the recipients of it. Plunder does not exist without the
existence of these people.
SM: Kimmelman puts some
of the blame on the Italians, saying their laws encourage
criminality when it comes to antiquities because the
authorities can seize the property around where the ancient
art is found not just the art, according to a 1939 Italian
law.
OWM: I think Mr. Kimmelman's apartment is part
of the land isn't it? I think Shelby White's apartment is
part of the land. Imagine if someone were to break into
Kimmelman's and White's apartments. Took what they wanted.
Destroyed what they didn't need. Left the apartment in
shambles. Brought their plunder to Italy. Like good
tombaroli. And then these guys can say "Well, Kimmelman
didn't take care of his apartment. Shelby White didn't take
care of her apartment. There wasn't a policeman in every
room was there? There wasn't an army of guards around the
apartment block." That's what these people are saying, and
all are rationalizations.
SM: Kimmelman
acknowledges that showing loans from Shelby White, who's
also a Met trustee and major donor is a problem for the Met.
The NY Times is finally acknowledging that. But he doesn't
say that she also writes for the NYT.
OWM: And
Kimmelman doesn't mention Sulzberger. My wife reminded me
the other day that you discussed the Met-Sulzberger conflict
of interest first in your widely-read piece for Scoop, Sotheby's & The Signed Euphronios, so
the Times had no choice but to come out with it as reporter
Hugh Eakin did obliquely in the piece that followed
Kimmelman's story.
But Shelby White's writing for the
Times is irrelevant because they're just little shots. The
crucial thing is that Kimmelman is covering, protecting,
getting paid to write that article which is in fact a cover
up. It's like someone writing an article saying John Gotti
was an honest business man. Went to church every Sunday,
gave away turkeys, was a devout Catholic.
SM:
Kimmelman said museums should devise tougher standards
accepting the burden of proof.
OWM: I want Shelby
White, when her apartment's broken into and the tombaroli
take her stuff to Italy, to provide the same burden of
proof.
SM: He says they should have third party
committees sign off on issues of provenance.
OWM:
Who would these third parties be? You know it's not going
to be me, who is an authority on provenance and provenience.
And it's not going to be honest archaeologists. That we do
know.
It's like saying when the police capture someone
who's stolen something, are you going to have a third party
come in and decide if in fact this is true? Well, we have
the courts in that case. But these guys don't mean the
courts.
SM: And then he says the museum-going
public should be more vigilant. Is there a problem
here?
OWM: The public doesn't know anything about
it.
SM: Kimmelman also endorses the British way of
doing things. In Britain, if somebody finds something
ancient in the ground, they can sell it. And if the
government wants it, it has to match the market
price.
OWM: But that's irrelevant to the present
issue.
SM: This is what Berlusconi wanted to do,
which is give people 5% of whatever they dig up and then
turn over the item to the state.
OWM: I don't want
to discuss it. It's irrelevant. It's nothing to do with
the facts here. What he's saying is totally irrelevant to
the fact that countless Americans - Dietrich von Bothmer
was one of the main plunderers -- Le Comte
Philippe,[Douglas] Dillion (late US treasury secretary and
founding partner of Dillon Read).
They have been
encouraging the destruction of the planet's history for
decades -- the cultural property of Italy,Turkey, Iran,
Iraq and on and on. Encouraging the plunder. Encouraging
the smuggling. It has nothing to do with 5%, 10%. That's a
red herring.
SM: And is it intentional? Do they
want to erase the history?
OWM: They don't care.
I've talked to the dealers and collectors. One dealer stated
he "wanted it [a plundered object] madly."
He couldn't
care less about rape and plunder. Neither can financier and
collector Michael Steinhardt or Jonathan Rosen or Shelby
White, et al. If you read the language collectors use --
it's all about power. And they use their power to employ
pimps like Kimmelman to propagandize. Kimmelman is not the
only one. Grace Glueck's been doing it for years, also
Holland Cotter, Rita Reif. All the so-called art critics
who review an exhibition of plundered object in the Times
and never once say that they're plundered objects.
SM: [I'm suddenly reminded of the dinner parties
journalists are invited to in covering the antiquities trade
to get to know the players and watch as the carrot and stick
are dangled. I recall a Park Avenue soiree I once attended
when writing a story for The Economist magazine about one of
the key dealers. It was very much an insiders power affair,
a dozen or so people. Seated next to me was then 25-year-old
blond Peter Bacanovic, who'd just returned from Europe and
was working in public relations; he'd later become Martha
Stewart's stockbroker. To my other side was the editor of an
important art newspaper. In the doorway the perennial muse,
Nan Kempner. And on the terrace the Metropolitan Museum's
lawyer Aston Hawkins and his friends. But my coverage of the
dealer would not keep me on the A list.]
Can you discuss
the members of the board of trustees a little more? During
the time of the Euphronios acquisition who were some of the
trustees?
OWM: The only reason you're on the board
of trustees is if you're very wealthy. Otherwise, end of
discussion. Number two. You have something to donate.
Except - why was Henry Kissinger a member of the board of
trustees?
SM: Is he still on the board of
trustees?
OWM: No, he's not. He was a member for
years. He had power. He could handle things privately in
the State Department.
I met a State Dept. man once
regarding Turkey's Lydian treasure. And he told me that
Ashton Hawkins - the consigliere of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art - went to him in the State Dept. to
officially ask on the part of the board of trustees, the
mayor of New York City and the rich and powerful - to "get
those Turks off the Met's back". I asked him what he'd
done.
He said he told him he wouldn't do it. I'm talking
about a man from the State Dept. Now you go back to 1973
around the time of the Euphronios purchase and my firing,
you have the mayor of New York City John Lindsay - who was
a personal friend of Hoving's for years. Who also worked
together with Dillon and the Rockefellers. You get the
controller of the City of New York, the president of the
city council. Over decades people who held these elected
public offices have participated in and accepted every theft
and crime committed by the trustees and their employees, the
directors and curators.
So in 1973 we have Arthur
Sulzberger, the Haughton family, C. Douglas Dillon, Francis
Plimpton (Debevoise & Plimpton). . .
[Board of Trustees
as of September 12, 1973:
Ex Officio:
John V. Lindsay,
Mayor of New York City
Abraham Beame, Comptroller of the
City of New York
Sanford Garelik, President of the City
Council
Richard M. Clurman, Administrator for Parks,
Recreation and Cultural Affairs
Alfred Easton Poor,
President of the National Academy of Design
Thomas
Hoving, Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Board of
Trustees Standing Committees:
Acquisitions:
Douglas
Dillon, Chairman
Mrs. Vincent Astor
J. Richardson
Dilworth
Mrs. James W. Fosburgh
Peter H.B.
Frelinghuysen
Roswell L. Gilpatric
Arthur A. Houghton,
Jr.
Andre Meyer
Mrs. Charles S. Payson
David T.
Schiff
Arthur O. Sulzberger
Charles Wrightsman
Executive:
Douglas Dillion, Chairman
Mrs. Vincent
Astor
R. Manning Brown, Jr.
Mrs. McGeorge
Bundy
Daniel P. Davison
J. Richardson
Dilworth
Roswell L. Gilpatric
Arthur A. Houghton,
Jr.
Arnold P. Johnson
Robert M. Pennoyer
Richard
Perkins
Francis T.P. Plimpton
Francis Day
Rogers
Joseph A. Thomas
Arthur K. Watson
Charles
Wrightsman
Finance:
J. Richardson Dilworth,
Chairman
Douglas Dillion, ex officio
R. Manning Brown,
Jr.
Daniel P. Davison
Andre Meyer
Richard M.
Paget
Richard S. Perkins
David T. Schiff
Sol
Shaviro
Arthur K. Watson
SM: And
now?
OWM: The present trustees including Mayor
Michael Bloomberg [also of Bloomberg news] are loyally
trying to protect the past trustees, director and the
curator involved in the theft - each a powerful and very
rich individual, also "their museum," and their employee Le
Comte.
Punchy is on the acquisitions committee. Pinchy
is on the regular board of trustees. A major component of
this whole thing is the conflict of interest involvement
where the mayor of New York City, the controller, president
of the city council are all members of the board of
trustees. Together with the collectors Shelby White, Paula
Cussi, the Houghton and David-Weill families
So in 1973
Sulzberger was a major component on the acquisition
committee along with C. Douglas Dillon and buying the
Euphronios vase. And up until now, 2005, Sulzberger has
been defending that and covering that up. And Kimmelman is
showing us that he's still going to cover up the role of
Sulzberger in the purchase of the vase. The name you dare
not speak - SULZBERGER.
The trustees, rejecting the
demands of then Greek and Roman curator Dietrich von Bothmer
and Le Comte Philippe returned the so-called Lydian Treasure
to Turkey, after years of ignoring the Turkish claims and
demands for its return. This action occurred only because
if the Turkish legal suit against the Met had gone to public
trial, the evidence from internal Met documents would have
embarrassed them. These documents manifestly demonstrate
that from day one the trustees (Sulzberger, et al.),
director (Hoving) and the curator involved (Dietrich von
Bothmer) knew that the objects derived from a plundered and
destroyed tomb in western Turkey.
SM: You opposed
the acquisition of the Euphronios vase. Can you tell me
what happened to you as a result of taking that position?
OWM: When Hoving came in he began an absolutely
fascist control. I'm not being flip when I say that.
People were threatened. They were fired. There was to be
no discussion of opposition.
SM: Hoving emailed
the following note to me on 12/3/2005:
". . . Oscar Muscarella was not fired
because of his feelings about the krater but because he had
been ordering several women around in a rather arrogant way
when he was the temporary head of the Department of Ancient
Near East; the New York Grand Jury stopped their
interrogations when Muriel Newman stepped forward and
testified that she had seen the Euphronios fragments in a
shoe box in Dikran Sarrafian's apartment in Beirut in '68.
(This was, of course, before I came up with the two-krater
theory which explains the documents switcheroo.) Finally,
Punch Sulzberger was a board member when we bought the
krater and later became Chairman of the board. Tom
Hoving"
I emailed Tom
Hoving:
"Oscar Muscarella told me you
ordered Ashton Hawkins to fire him on February 28, 1973,
actually, because of his comments to the NYT about the E
[Euphronios] vase with Hawkins saying at the staff meeting
on February 24, 1973, "We are definitely firing him now."
Muscarella says charges were made up about him, that there
was one woman in the department "acting in an arrogant and
totally destructive manner" and she was fired by Rousseau
[OWM clarifies that she was fired by the head of the ancient
Near East dept.] after he returned from Iraq, but that you
overrode the firing because of her social standing,
etc."
Hoving did not respond further on
the issue.
He was the parks commissioner
first.
OWM: He was the parks commissioner. As parks
commissioner he was on the board of trustees and then became
director of the museum just as Sulzberger was on the
acquisitions committee as a board member and then became
chairman of the board.
I'd been threatened with firing.
Then the National Labor Relations Board stepped in and
stopped it. But on February 24, 1973, I was called by a
reporter for the NYT named David Shirey. I spoke at length.
He only quoted me on certain things. I told him absolutely
the vase's provenance being an Armenian dealer [Sarrafian]
in Beirut was a red herring. In fact, I coined a phrase
they were furious at. I said I wish I knew the Armenian
word for deus ex machina, for this man Sarrafian who was
made up as the guy who had the Euphronios.
That was a
Friday and the following Monday I was called aside by
someone. I don't know if he swore me to confidentiality but
I never revealed his name except to my lawyer to this day.
He just came from a meeting of the Staff Policy Committee,
where Ashton Hawkins acting under orders from Thomas Hoving
announced: "We are definitely firing him now."
And he
cited the Shirey article that I dared to challenge the
trustees in print. And that was the final thing. The court
case lasted years and years.
Yes, I opposed the purchase
of the Greek vase. I was the only one in the museum who did
so. And I have to tell you very few of my colleagues came
to my aid. There were a number who came to my trial to
testify to my character, my integrity, my honesty, whatever.
But we could not because of a quirk, a legal thing, we could
not bring up why I was fired. But we won anyway because all
the other charges were made up charges.
In discovery my
lawyer and I found letters between C. Douglas Dillon and
Ashton Hawkins. There were many letters; we selected eight.
Every one discussed the strategy how to fire me. My lawyer
said we will bring them to court, submit them to the judge.
But the judge said they could not be used, according to
lawyer-client privilege. Because every one was signed by
Ashton Hawkins. It wasn't until the Gotti trial that the
judges were on to this. But if you have an in-house hired
lawyer-- he's the consigliere.
In those days no one
thought of this. So every letter because it was written by
Ashton Hawkins - he's vice president and counsel - the
judge said these will not be admitted into
court.
SM: You contend that what percentage of the
artifacts in the museum are looted?
OWM: In my
department [Ancient Near East] it's mixed and there's been a
pull-back on buying antiquities. If you go to the Greek and
Roman room -- I call it "The Temple of Plunder" -- the great
majority are plundered over the years. There's even one
object stolen from another museum. They know it's stolen
from a museum. They refuse to return it. It's a griffen
head.
In the Department of Arts of Africa, etc., every
pre-Columbian object - every one -- is plundered and the
tomb sites totally destroyed. This is known to Sulzberger,
known to the curator, known to Le Comte Philippe de
Montebello.
But other departments that play a major role
in plunder are the Asian Art department:
-- Hundreds and
hundreds from temples and tombs from all over Cambodia,
Thailand, China, just to decorate vitrines in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
-- And Dillon played a major
role in that because he put up a lot of money to buy these,
i.e., supported the plunder, paid the plunderers, saw that
they were smuggled out. So the Far East department is
packed with stolen objects.
-- Egyptian I don't know
enough about the record. I think they've been buying some
but I don't know enough to go on.
SM: And then
what percentage would you say are fake?
OWM: Very
few on exhibit right now. I discuss this in The Lie but
there's only one I think, the Harp Player, that is probably
a forgery. But of course it's such an important piece.
They've made posters out of it.
SM: So the fakes
have been withdrawn from the galleries.
OWM: In my
department too - but that goes back some years. I don't
know enough about fakes in other departments to make a
comment.
SM: So what is the answer? The
answer is just to stop?
OWM: The answer is that the
mayor of New York tomorrow should get up publicly in front
of the board of trustees and say right now I order this
museum - YOU HEAR ME MR. BLOOMBERG? - I order the
Metropolitan Museum of Art to order every curator to stop
buying stolen objects right now. That's what should be done
tomorrow morning. Next he should telephone the Italian
Consul in NYC and say come over here in ten minutes, fifteen
minutes. I will personally hand over the Greek vase to you,
the Euphronios vase. Come and pick it up.
SM: Ever
met Bob Hecht?
OWM: No never met him.
SM:
And Marion True?
OWM: No. I don't think so.
Marion True is the classic curator. Buy every stolen
object you can. Buy every plundered object you can. Accept
forged documents.
In the case of the Kouros, they
accepted forged documents, which Houghton alleged they
didn't know were forged. They knew they were forged from
day one. I'm saying this on record. That's the job of the
curator.
True should get a medal from the directors of
the museum for being the curator: Buy stolen art. Cover
all the tracks. Get false documents. Swear that all the
objects purchased were actually found by peasants in the
fields. That's why True has been promoted, well paid
and powerful.
SM: Well what do you think's going
to happen with this trial in Rome?
Hecht's 86 years old.
Do you think he's going to get the Clark (BCCI) Clifford
treatment? He essentially gets off with a big
fine?
OWM: Italian honor is involved
here.
SM: It's 94 objects he supposedly
trafficked.
OWM: Years ago, in the 70s, in the
cafeteria of this museum Dietrich von Bothmer happened to be
at the coffee table where I was. And he was making snarling
remarks about those dirty dishonest Italians who take
bribes. The son of a bitch -- he was paying the bribes -
okay?
I will say this that if the Italians let True and
Hecht go, and do not get back their Euphronios vase there
can be only two reasons - STUPIDITY OR BRIBERY. There's no
other reason why the Italians would let them go. Their whole
culture, their whole history is being destroyed by the
Houghtons, Sulzbergers, Le Comte Philippe, the Shelby Whites
and the whole board of trustees of the Met, including the
mayor of New York City. And they've got to stand up to
them.
SM: And the public.
OWM: Doesn't
know anything about this.
SM: That there's public
money invested in the Met.
OWM: This is very
important. Every stolen object that's purchased or
returned, any object a dealer or collector gives to the
museum that is a plundered, stolen object, the taxpayers are
paying for it.
The public also does not know that the
Metropolitan Museum claims that its administration alone may
make public and private statements that relate to academic
or curatorial work accomplished, or published in academic
journals by individual members of its staff. If a staff
member calls attention to a crime or solecism of the Met or
publishes something - anything on any subject in any
journal, I was told by a department administrator and Sharon
Cott, the Met's Counsel - that unless it was vetted in
house, it is considered improper and irresponsible and
subject to penalty.
I have a letter from de Montebello
threatening to fire me [cited above] if I speak to anyone
about the Metropolitan Museum of Art plundering and stealing
antiquities from their countries of origin. And he wrote a
letter to the London Times apologizing for my having
published a scholarly article in a scholarly journal:
without his permission! Does any other tax-supported
institution get away with this irresponsible anti-academic
freedom behavior? Is this discussed in NYC budget meetings
when it is determined how much funding is to be allotted to
the Metropolitan Museum - de facto, to its Trustees?
Nota bene: the Director of the Met serves at the
pleasure of the Trustees, is hired by them, and reflects
their interests. They are legally and morally responsible
for his actions. Therefore, it is they who are manifestly
legally responsible for these letters, that it is they who
de facto wrote them to me.
The taxpayers paid for the
plundered Lydian Treasure -- which was returned to Turkey.
You're talking to a man who actually met with the late
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Dem-NY). I spent days in
Washington when they were having hearings. And I testified
before Congress when Moynihan authored the Convention on
Cultural Property Information Act in 1983 (he diluted the
language), which weakly ratified the Unesco treaty regarding
the illegal trade in cultural property.
I liked Moynihan
so much. He came out on the floor to talk with me. I tried
to explain to him all that I'm saying here. And he said,
" I don't believe this at all, I think this is just Third
World flagellation of America".
By the way, he was
very close friends with Leon Levy, Shelby White and Michael
Steinhardt. He was very close to all the dealers and
collectors.
From 1964 -1970/1 I thought it was normal to
buy antiquities. And then I heard a lecture by Clemency
Coggins from Harvard. Two lectures. And then I heard Ezat
Negahban who had to stay and fight for 11 months in the
freezing cold and heat in Iran to protect his site from
dealer gangs who beat him up. He appealed to the Shah. The
Shah sent a corps of soldiers to protect him so he could
finish excavating one of the most important sites in Iran.
So three lectures turned me around. And in 1971, I wrote
my first paper that I would not participate in the
acquisition of antiquities any more and I wrote the
administration about this.
Not only because I converted,
but it became so obvious after the early 70s, that no one --
no archaeologist, no museum curator -- could be unaware of
what I'm saying. Clemency Coggins started it all.
When
I was fired on February 28, it had to be okayed by the
trustees. I met one of them, Francis Plimpton [Debevoise &
Plimpton] by accident. I cornered him and discussed all this
with him.
He said, " We have enough on you."
Very politiely I said, "You don't know what I have to say
only what Mr. Hoving has said."
" We have enough,"
he said.
The board of trustees voted to fire me. One of
those who voted to fire me was Punchy Sulzberger. I dared to
speak with one of his reporters without permission of the
museum four days earlier. Kimmelman doesn't mention that in
the article by the
way.
*************
Suzan
Mazur's stories on art and antiquities have been published
in The Economist, Financial Times, Connoisseur, Archaeology
(cover) and Newsday. Some of her other reports have
appeared on PBS, CBC and MBC. She has been a guest on
McLaughlin, Charlie Rose and various Fox television news
programs. Email: sznmzr@aol.com
.
THIS ISSUE
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Comment & Opinion
Whistleblower Blows Lid On Met Antiquities Intrigue - I first met Metropolitan Museum ancient Near East expert Oscar Muscarella in the late 1980s. I went to see him at his office to discuss some safety pins or "fibulas" which had turned up in a couple of tumuli in southwest Turkey along with other artifacts that Turkish archaeologists identified as Phrygian. The Phrygians -- King Midas's people -- were master craftsmen and the objects just found appeared to belong to a royal Phrygian family: a silver belt with a fibula-like catch, iron dagger with gold reliefs on the handle, two griffins from a bronze caldron, a fertility ring with phallus-shaped knobs, and statuettes - one of Anatolia's mother goddess Kybele in ivory and another in silver of a eunuch priest. The Met's controversial Greek and Roman chairman Dietrich von Bothmer told me he considered the statuettes "masterpieces" and "purely Phrygian." See... Antiquities Whistleblower Oscar White Muscarella . Earlier: Suzan Mazur: A Preview Of Bob Hecht's Memoirs
Two Michael Collins ScoopVote Fraud Exclusives - The Campaign to Unite California Election Reformers - Movement for legal action against officials who allowed unauthorized software changes to voting machines starts in Northern California. Strong local support. See... California Activists Call the Cops on Diebold and Kerry Won!!! Statistical Tools Everyone Can Use
No Flies On Misinformation Maestro Dennis Hans - John Edwards began his widely discussed guest column for the Washington Post , titled “The Right Way in Iraq,” with these dramatic words: “I was wrong.” See... Dennis Hans: I Was Right
White (Phosphorous) Christmas - Bodycount Iraq - George W. Bush, 12 December 2005: “How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say; 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We’ve lost about 2,140 of our own troops.” As the Occupation of Iraq is approaching three years, the mass murder of Iraqi civilians is not questioned, but normalised in Western conscience. President Bush reached the stage where he is able to make his own figure of Iraqi deaths, with no remorse or sadness. The war was not the result of “wrong intelligence”; the war was an illegal act of aggression, and a premeditated mass murder. ‘Democracy’ is used as a tool to manipulate the public and justify war crimes. See... Ghali Hassan: The Crimes of U.S. ‘Democracy’
MORE: Gabriele Zamparini Gabriele Zamparini: White (Phosphorous) Christmas Jay Shaft IV With Vet - I’m Just Not The Same Person I Was Before Iraq Dahr Jamail - Dahr Jamail: An Increasingly Aerial Occupation
Cynicism Over Bush / McCain Torture Concession - In deciding not to follow through on his threat to veto Sen. John McCain’s amendment against torture, Bush actually surrendered very little. Torture is still in the eyes of the beholders in the defense and intelligence communities. See... Bush Gesture to McCain: Less than Meets the Eye
MORE: Augustine Peterson - Bush Fools Americans Over McCain Ban On On Torture Bernard Weiner - Those Secret Torture-Prisons: A Modest Proposal William Fisher - Remembering Eleanor & the Human Rights Declaration
MORE COMMENT AND OPINION:
Uri Avnery - The Main Thing - to Have No Fear!
Bernard Weiner - The Would-Be Dictator
Third World Network - The Back Story To The WTO Hong Kong Declaration
Genevieve Cora Fraser - Marat-Sade Diplomacy Prevails Over Palestine
Remi Kanazi - Dishonest Brokers
Ramzy Baroud - US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
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