After nearly three years of back and forth, sometimes heated, oftentimes complicated due to regional Italian politics, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu is finally set to return a terracotta head depicting the Greek god Hades.  The object had been irrefutably determined to have been clandestinely excavated, most likely from the Morgantina sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone in the Province of Enna, Sicily in 1978. 

According to the Getty's website, the statue head was acquired between 1982 - 1985.  By chance or luck, the Hades head matched a small fragment left behind in the Sicilian dirt: a little curly spiral painted with strokes of the same bright Egyptian blue as appears on the head's beard.  Most likely the curl detached from the head's beard while being looted from the sanctuary, were it was found by the archaeological team just after discovering the illicit digging.  

The bust was purchased by the museum for $530,000 from New York collector Maurice Tempelsman who had, in turn, purchased the object from British art dealer Robin Symes. For three decades prior to his death, Symes was once one of London’s most successful antiques dealers. Both Tempelsman and Symes are both known to have been conduits for tainted objects, laundered via local fences and high level antiquities dealers through to wealthy collectors or museums who then seemingly willingly purchased the illicit antiquities with limited or no collection history when building antiquities collections.

In a ceremony held in California at the John Paul Getty Museum, in the presence of Antonio Verde, the Consul General of Italy in Los Angeles,  Francesco Rio, the Chief Prosecutor for the Italian state and Major Luigi Mancuso of the Italian Carabinieri's Art Crimes Squad, the USA museum formally relinquished the ancient object which dates back to 400-300 BCE. 

The sanctuary of Persephone and Demeter at the ruins of Morgantina, just outside Aidone.

The head will be flown back to Italy on Friday, January 29, 2016 where it will be reabsorbed into the collection at the Museo Archeologico di Aidone Once in Sicily it is to be reunited with another once-looted object, repatriated from the Getty in 2011, the cult statue of a Goddess, also known as the Morgantina Venus.  Like the Hades head being repatriated this week, the 2.3 meter tall limestone and marble statue is thought to have been excavated illegally in Sicily between 1977 or 1978 from, or near the ruins of the fifth- to first-century BCE town of Morgantina. This statue, like the Hades head, found its way to the California museum having passed through the hands of sicilian-based looters working through a network that lead through the London dealer Robin Symes. 

The province of Enna contains more than two hundred registered and surveyed archaeological sites in addition to a high number of places known only to the area's tombaroli (illegal diggers).  Spoken about in the writings of Cicero, Claudianus, Diodorus Siculo, and Livy, the ancient remains of the place give strong testimony to the vibrant life of the ancient populations of the island of Sicily, from the beginnings of the island's habitation through the great migrations of the Paleolithic epoch, up through the Middle Ages.  

Of the ancient artworks recovered by the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, nearly two out of three are reported to have come from this one Sicilian province.  Few leave behind curly clues with which to identify objects as being looted. 

References

Gill, D. W. J., and C. Chippindale. 2007. "From Malibu to Rome: further developments on the return of antiquities." International Journal of Cultural Property 14: 205-40.

Raffiotta, S. "Una divinità maschile per Morgantina." CSIG News. Newsletter of the Coroplastic Studies Interest Group, no. 11, Winter 2014, pp. 23-26.

After posting a damage notification on Friday regarding the Bar'an Temple, also known as the Moon Temple in Ma'rib, Yemen, عرش بلقيس ARCA and Archaeology in Yemen received word late yesterday evening via text message that the images portrayed via multiple news outlets across Yemen and elsewhere in social media were not of the Bar'an Temple.  With little more to go on besides, "the images are wrong" I and the administrator of Archaeology in Yemen set about reconfirming the details, as even well-meaning heritage professionals, who do our best to double and triple fact check before reporting, make mistakes. 

Pouring through BBC and Youtube videos and hundreds of images and PDFs via the Sana'a Branch of the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute we now know the commenter was correct.  Most importantly, we now know what site was depicted in the January 14, 2016 reports and have more details than we had at the time of the original reporting.   For correction purposes, we will be leaving this re-identification notice up on both this and the original incorrect post pages so as to prevent any further misidentification. 

The site damaged which was incorrectly identified as the Bar'an Temple (Moon Temple), Ma'rib, Yemen, عرش بلقيس  is actually the Almaqah Temple in Ṣirwāḥ, Yemen معبد إلمقه.

One of the great religious centers of ancient Arabia, Sirwah, is located 120 km east of Sanaa and 40 km west of Ma'rib.  The site is situated between the Yemeni highlands to the west and the Rub al Khali, or Empty Quarter to the east.  This temple's location is thirty minutes by car away from the Bar'an Temple, or at least it would be, if you were travelling during peace time from one historically pillar-filled site to the other. 

From January 14th through January 16, 2016 Saudi-led coalition warplanes resumed their airstrikes on Yemen.  On Thursday, January 14th as many as 20 sorties were reported by witnesses and various regional news services and social media.   Some of these engagements targeted the Sirwah district in the Ma’rib Province of Yemen and it is following those strikes that the damages to the Almaqah Temple in Ṣirwāḥ started to go public.

Details of the damage to the historic site can be seen in the video clip below and in the comparison photos found in this post.  As has been reported time and time again, the air strikes in this conflict are not differentiating between military, civilian and archaeological targets and the result is both a humanitarian and historic catastrophe.

But even with this much documentation, we still cannot ascertain if this is new damage, or damages sustained earlier in the conflict as intensive airstrikes have been carried out in this region since Saudi-coalition troops pushed into the district in early October 2015. There were also earlier reports of some unidentified level of damage to the site on April 27, 2015 however we have not been able to date what happened to the site during what incident as of yet.

While the recent report of "new" damages came out on January 14, 2014 it was just a few short hours after that when Arabic news services started to get either the impacted site's name wrong or displayed the correctly named site but with incorrectly sourced photo imagery, which brings me back to my original a pillar is not a pillar statement.   This is what makes site identification from the safety of a non conflict country difficult and why news sources closer to the engagement must be checked and rechecked by multiple sets of eyes for accuracy something that isn't always a perfect science when site identifications are being done by volunteers with limited time and resources at their disposal.

For the record, the news sources reporting the sites incorrectly are:

News of Yemen - Reported photos of the damage sustained at the Almaqah Temple but stated the site's name as The Queen of Sheba Temple in Marib. 

Sa'ada News - Identified the Almaqah Temple correctly and stressing that the damages occurred on January 14, 2016, but carried a photo of the Bar'an Temple (Moon Temple), Ma'rib, 

Yalmashhad News - Reported photos of the damage sustained at the throan of the Queen of Sheba in Marib using a photo of the Bar'an Temple (Moon Temple), Ma'rib, 

Sana'a City - Identified the Almaqah Temple correctly, but carried no photo.  

Almaqah Temple pillers in Sirwah, Yemen. NOTE: that large missing piece is already reflected in the upper earlier dated photo. This is not conflict damage.

News sources reporting the site incorrectly are:

The Boulevard - Identified the Almaqah Temple correctly and stressing that the damages occurred on January 14, 2016.  Carries a correct photo, though it is unclear if this if of damages or the excavation.

Almasirah News -  Identified the Almaqah Temple correctly and carries a correct photo of the porticos six pillars. 

The temple in Sirwah is believed to have been dedicated to the Sabaean god Almaqah, whose temple's dedicatory inscription at Sirwah read ‘Ba’al Awa’el’,or "Master of the Ibex" which helps explain the continuous line of ibex heads found on external surfaces at the site.  

Sadly the main tower, appears to be severely damaged by the force of the hit, which cracked an inscription dating back to the seventh century BCE. Damage have also been documented along the row of carved ibexes on the outside of its temple wall.  Lastly, one of the portico's six misidentified pillars which appeared to have been damaged by the conflict is instead historically missing the dramatic chunk publicised across the web. 

By:  Lynda Albertson

Photos used for Identification in this report in order of presentation:

3D model - Abdelhafiz 2009

From Top to Bottom Mabkhot Mohtem, Almasirah.net, Tihamahnews

Left to right - Panaramio and News of Yemen

Top to Bottom - Sarah Rijziger-History Today and News of Yemen 

Pouring through BBC and Youtube videos and hundreds of images and PDFs via the Sana'a Branch of the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute we now know the commenter was correct.  Most importantly, we now know what site was depicted in the January 14, 2016 reports and have more details that we had at the time of the original reporting.   For correction purposes, we will be leaving this re-identification notice up on both this and the original incorrect post pages so as to prevent any further misidentification.

The site damaged which was incorrectly identified as the Bar'an Temple (Moon Temple), Ma'rib, Yemen, عرش بلقيس  is actually the Almaqah Temple in Ṣirwāḥ, Yemen.

From the capital of Sana'a to Ma'rib, Aden, Dhale, Hajjah, Hodayda, Sa'ada, Shabwa, and Ta'iz: Mohannad al-Sayani, the Director of Yemen's General Organization of Antiquities and Museums has stated that at least 23 sites and monuments have been severely damaged or destroyed since beginning of the conflict in Yemen. 

ARCA, Archaeology in Yemen and Archaeology in Syria Network are trying to document all of them.

Bar'an Temple, Ma'rib Governorate, Yemen



Information on social media first reported that Yemen's Bar'an Temple, located next to Ma‘bid ash Shams in Ma'rib Governorate was damaged as a result of the ongoing conflict on or around January 14, 2016.

Yemen journalists and eye witnesses state that Saudi forces damaged parts of the temple's main pillars as well as epigraphic remains that contain writing in the Old Line Sabaean as the result of shelling in Sirwah area of Marib province.

Research on this location produced a lengthy group of names. Known as the Bar'an Temple, the Almaqah Temple, The Moon Temple, the Al-Amaid, and also as Arsh Bilquis, (the Arabic name for the Queen of Sheba) and the Throne of Bilquis the site is located about 85 miles east of the capital, Sana`a and two miles southeast of Ma'rib  at 15.4032200 (latitude in decimal degrees), 45.3430900 (longitude in decimal degrees).

The temple is believed to have been built by Mukarrib Yada`'il Dharih in between the 7th and 5th century BCE and was dedicated to the worship of the moon god Ilmaqah, although the names of two other Sabaean deities, Hawbas and Athtar also appear in some of the site's engravings.

The Sanaa Branch of the Deutches Archaeologisches Institut (DAI), headquartered in Berlin, initiated the excavation of the Bar'an temple in 1988 as part of a larger project centered in the Marib province. Excavation of the temple was completed in 1997, however conservation work continued for another four seasons.  The site was formally opened to the public on November 18, 2000.

The five pillars marking the entrance to this temple and inner cella, are considered to be the tallest in South Arabia. The temple grounds themselves include a ritual well and an altar for sacrifice as well as smaller altars and several alabaster benches arranged around the inner perimeter walls.

Prior to this current attack, the site was also targeted, as a result of unrest.  On Monday July 2, 2007 a suspected al-Qaida suicide bomber detonated his car inside the gates of the ancient temple killing seven Spaniards tourists and two Yemenis.

NOTE:  Archaeology in Yemen has been informed that some of the original photos identified as part of the Bar'an Temple are not part of the site.  If you have any further information or can help with identification please contact ARCA in the comments section below so we can pass your name to the AiY administrators.

For more photos of the purported damage and to follow Archaeology in Yemen on Facebook, please click here. 

The Carabinieri TPC (Carabinieri del Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Culturale) in Ancona have recovered three stolen paintings dating from the seventeenth century.  The investigation, started in early 2014 and coordinated by the Public Prosecutors at the Court of Rome and in Perugia involved two paintings stolen in a private home in the province of Siena in 2007 and a third which had been taken from a house in Rome in 1991.  

This is not the first time Ancona's Carabinieri TPC squad has been successful in recovering stolen art. In September 2015 the unit recovered an oil painting from an unknown artist dating from the XVI / XVII century, depicting a 'Madonna with Child'.  This artwork had been stolen sometime in the evening between the 5th and 6th of June 1990 from the Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo where it had been displayed above the alter.  .The painting had turned up in an an antique store in San Benedetto del Tronto. 

Details on the recent paintings recovered and the conditions of the artworks are expected during a forthcoming Carabinieri TPC press conference. 

Following a request by the Associated Press earlier this month, Digital Globe, a global provider of high-resolution Earth-imagery products and services, provided the news service with imagery which appears to confirm that the monastery known in English as the Saint Elijah Monastery or the Dair Mar Elia, ((دير مار إيليا) has been obliterated by ISIS/ISIL sometime prior to September 28, 2014.  It was the oldest known Christian monastery in Iraq.  

Located on a hill south of Mosul, local Chaldean leaders place the monastery's age back to the fourth century after Christ.  Other evidence indicates that the original monastery on this site was built around 571 CE during the reign of the Persian King Hurmizd IV.  Assuming that this date is accurate, the monastery predates the founding of Islam by about one hundred years.  

Imagery obtained for comparison by AP before and after compared with earlier amateur videos shot by US military personnel during cultural awareness site visits seem to suggest that the monastery has either been bulldozed completely or detonated to the ground level.

Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, said “such deliberate destruction is a war crime and it must not stay unpunished. It also reminds us how terrified by history the extremists are, because understanding the past undermines the pretexts they use to justify these crimes and exposes them as expressions of pure hatred and ignorance.”

But this ultimate final insult by ISIL/ISIS is not the only hardship Saint Elijah Monastery has faced. 

During the 2003 Iraqi conflict, Iraqi tank units damaged rooms and reportedly filled the ancient cistern with trash while using it as a latrine. 

In this first video, apparently made during a US forces visit after taking control of the site, viewers can hear a military guide giving touring soldiers from Forward Operating Base Marez a lecture on the significance of the religious site and why it was later fenced off to protect the site against looters and further degradation.  After that, soldiers were only allowed to visit the site when accompanied by military chaplains or designated military guides.

In this first video the speaker talks about not only the Christian iconography but also the damage the site sustained as a result of a US-Iraqi skirmish with the Iraqi Republican Guard during the initial invasion in 2003.  The officer mentions a U.S. Army anti-tank missile fired by the 101st Airborne at an Iraqi tank unit that was stationed in and around the religious site during the military engagement.  

The tow missile, fired by the US modular light infantry division towards a military target, damaged the ancient chapel's wall when the missile blasted the turret off a T-72 Russian tank.  The impact catapulted the turret into the side of the monastery, buckling the historic site's wall and creating many large cracks and fissures.

Other damages however were not directly related to this armed engagement, but instead were opportunistic offences and carelessness when the 101st were themselves garrisoned at the site.

Soldiers attached to the 101st painted their division's 'Screaming Eagle' logo above the chapel's doorway and also white-washed the stone alter and chapel walls, covering what is believed to have been the remnants of 600-year-old murals.  To add insult to injury, 'Chad wuz here' and 'I love Debbie,' were also found scribbled onto other monastery surfaces along with older graffiti in Arabic and bullet holes. 

Some 250 years earlier, the monastery was nearly flattened by a Persian ruler who also ordered the monks living there to be slain.

Prior to its destruction by ISIS/ISIL the site consisted of 27 rooms and included a mihrab, a temple and a cistern.  Experts from the University of Mosul were scheduled to survey the grounds in 2008 but because of the volatility of the political situation at the time, a team of soldiers from current and former U.S. Army Europe engineer units (the 156th) were tasked to carry out the work as part of a mission in July 2008. The data collected was to be used in Army and civilian maps detailing the area of the monastery, as well as archeological excavations and geographic expeditions.

The 156th also created a three-dimensional model of the site based on their survey data to aid scientists studying the possible purpose of crumbling rooms in the monastery.

Perhaps this model will be of use to scholars going forward. 

From the capital of Sana'a to Ma'rib, Aden, Dhale, Hajjah, Hodayda, Sa'ada, Shabwa, and Ta'iz: Mohannad al-Sayani, the Director of Yemen's General Organization of Antiquities and Museums has stated that at least 23 sites and monuments have been severely damaged or destroyed since beginning of the conflict in Yemen. 

ARCA, Archaeology in Yemen and Archaeology in Syria Network are trying to document all of them. 

Site 1: Al-Qahera Castle, Taiz, Yemen  

 قلعة القاهرة, تعز, ال

Al-Qahira Castle(also known as Cairo Castle) is located on the highest mountain in Taiz city. Throughout history it has been a contested site of battles for the rulers who ruled Taiz as the stronghold has both a spectacular vantage point and is a defensive fortress that when occupied by military forces, makes it strategic for the control of the city.

The book "Taiz City, Green Branch in the Arab History", written by previous Taiz Archeological Office's Director Mohammad al-Mujahed, dates the historical construction of the castle back to the Sulaihi State between 426- 532, after Hijrah. This book states that Sultan Mohammad Assulaihi was the ruler who ordered the building of the castle though the dates of origin differ in many historic documents.

Due to its strategic point in this current conflict, the castle was targeted by airstrikes on May 21, 2015 and sustained substantial damage.

The Nazi hunt for the work of Johannes Vermeer is not a long buried secret. It has been immortalized within a number of academic works and has found its way to mainstream media. Both Lynn H. Nicholas and Robert M. Edsel intimate an unspoken rivalry between Reichmarshall Hermann Georing and Hitler over the works of the Dutch Master that were uncovered during the pervasive looting of World War II. For, Vermeer was considered a champion of Germanic culture. In a world built upon the legacy of the great Italian masters, Hitler clung to Vermeer as the savior of his vision for cultural purity. For this reason, Vermeer's surviving works, if discovered amongst the loot, were to be considered revered above all else.

It was through this historical lens that I contextualized Vermeer’s The Astronomer, within the Museum of Fine Arts Boston’s (MFA) special exhibit, “Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer.” This work was, arguably, one of Hitler’s most prized acquisitions during World War II. Having been seized from the Rothschilds, the German dictator believed The Astronomer epitomized the superiority of the Germanic peoples. 

Discreetly nestled on a temporary wall, painted a calming grey, so as not to detract from the beauty of the piece, the Astronomer, sat engrossed in his studies. The painting seemed to serve as a juxtaposition between the role of scientists in Dutch society during the 17th-century, and their wealthy counterparts who, while amateurs, yearned to immerse themselves in the evolving climate of discovery and advancement of the time period. In this manner, the placement and accompanying description of the painting captured the essence of the exhibit. Yet, there was no mention of the painting’s muddled past. The MFA plaque merely stated the painting was on loan from the Musée de Louvre.

I question whether or not a small mention of The Astronomer’s past should have been included within the exhibit. On one hand, it could be argued that such information could detract from the theme of the exhibit. Yet, wouldn’t it also bring a new dimension to the history of the piece as well as the exhibit itself?

This question is largely based in my observations of the patrons I walked with. One man asked if I had noticed a painting was on loan from Queen Elizabeth II's private collection. I overhead another couple debating not only the aesthetic aspects of a painting, but the historical details as well. Others simply took the time to peruse the gallery, reading each description in its entirety. These art enthusiasts, sacrificing a sunny, Monday afternoon to walk amongst vestiges of the past, were enthralled not only by the theme of the display, but by the lives of the paintings before them.

Informing patrons that an object was looted during World War II brings life to the artwork. For, the life of a painting does not simply end when the paint dries. It changes hands. It travels the world. It inspires emotion. Sharing such information, while somewhat controversial, not only creates the opportunity for people to engage with the art on a new level. It also preserves a significant period in art history. It is both a topic of conversation and an homage to the past. A single line of text is all it would require to preserve what should never be forgotten.