TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

On 15 April 2024 and 19 April 2024, ARCA published two articles building on an announcement made by Spain's Ministry of the Interior which involved the identification of a looted Egyptian object. That investigation involved the Policía Nacional's Historical Heritage Brigade in collaboration with the Dutch Politie, the expertise of an extremely knowledgeable forensic scholar, and the assistance of a cooperating art gallery. With their combined efforts, the Swiss dealer voluntarily relinquished the suspect antiquity to the Dutch police.

Yesterday, Caretaker Prime Minister Dick Schoof, in a meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, announced that the Netherlands will hand over that same stolen sculpture by the end of the year.

Too frequently, antiquities restitution reporting becomes formulaic, providing only cursory information on an object's country of origin, value, age, and the agencies responsible for its seizure or restitution. This happened once again in this case, where one Dutch article reduced the historic object to its most basic description, “a 3,500-year-old stone head from the dynasty of Pharaoh Thutmose III,” followed by a brief paragraph speculating that the piece might be put on display at Egypt's the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, which officially opened yesterday.

Basic shapes of block statues

ARCA, being a research-based organisation which specifically examines  crimes that impact art and artefacts, does its best to provide more details to problematic pieces and the problematic dealers that profit from them. Our reporting serves as a means of holding people accountable and reminding individuals of the need to collect responsibly. 

The artefact being returned is not just an Egyptian "head".  It is a decapitated head broken off of an 18th Dynasty Egyptian block statue that was likely intentionally hacked off its body, or deliberately broken at the shoulders for ease of smuggling. Had it been intact, this memorial statue would have shown a man crouched and wrapped in a cloak, inscribed, at the very least with the name of the owner, incised on the body, the base, or the back pillar if one existed. 

Our original reporting touched on what we were able to ascertain about this disembodied head of a squatting man. We knew he was documented on social media sites and came up for sale through a Swiss-based art dealer during the short-lived European Fine Art Fair in 2020 and again with this same dealer when the fair reopened post-Covid in 2022.  Having been the subject of a joint-European policing initiative we know that authorities were convinced he was illegally exported from Egypt in contravention of the country's cultural property laws, then transited through intermediaries in Thailand before being first put up for sale in Barcelona, where it was sold by controversial gallery owner, Jaume Bagot Peix, of J. Bagot Arqueología.

As early as 2015 Bagot's problematic purchasing had placed him on the radar of Policía Judicial y de la UCIE de la Comisaría General de Información.  In 2018, he and Oriol Carreras Palomar were formally charged for their alleged participation in a crime of financing terrorism, belonging to a criminal organisation, concealment of contraband, and use of forgery for their roles in facilitating the sale of illicit antiquities involving pieces trafficked from a second war torn country, Libya.  

Bagot also was charged, and subsequently convicted in Italy, related to a stolen Roman statue and has been linked to a stolen Egyptian ushabti from Sudan, which was again circulated on the art market with falsified provenance documentation. That artefact was sold to the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in the Netherlands.  

But despite being suspected of trafficking material from at least three war-torn countries, and having one conviction in mainland Europe while other cases in other jurisdictions pile up, Bagot continues to receive favourable coverage in the press and has been described as operating "one of the most renowned ancient art galleries in Spain."  He also continues to be granted booths and promotion by Spain's Feriarte, an important annual art fair held at IFEMA Madrid, most recently from 18 to 26 October 2025, as well as at ANTIK Almoneda, another Madrid art sales event held from 22 to 30 March 2025.

All this demonstrates how long justice can take. In this Dutch restitution, it will have required five years from this objects initial sighting and identification at TEFAF in 2020 until its ultimate return to Egypt later this year and even longer for these problematic Spanish dealers to face the consequences of their actions. This case, like a second Bagot-related case in Belgium involving the the recent restitution of the Egyptian coffin of Pa-di-Hor-pa-khered, which was stolen from an archaeological site in Egypt in December 2015 and restituted in July 2025 both serve as reminders that restitution is not simply a bureaucratic exercise; it is a fight against a global market that too often rewards negligence and turns a blind eye to complicity. 

Until the art trade adopts a genuine commitment to better behaviour, transparency and due diligence, and holds its art market actors accountable, the cycle of loss, recovery, protracted restitution, and delayed accountability will continue, slowly, one object at a time.

This Regulation applies only to cultural goods created or discovered outside of the European Union.

The regulation was introduced in response to:

• Increasing international concerns about looted antiquities (particularly from conflict zones like Syria, Iraq*),
• The use of cultural objects to fund terrorism,
• The lack of uniform rules across EU Member States regarding the import of cultural goods.

1. Import Licences

When violence first broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Khartoum became an epicenter of combat. Within days, RSF units occupied large swaths of the city, including key government buildings, residential neighbourhoods, and the area surrounding the Sudan National Museum. 

The museum itself fell within contested territory, with ongoing shelling and street battles posing severe risk and making its interior impossible to secure.  Throughout the months that followed, reports of looting and damage to Khartoum’s infrastructure and the museum were reported, with its museum staff and heritage experts displaced under the strain of war, making it nearly impossible to assess the damage while the the city remained under siege. 

It wasn’t until early 2025—after a sustained counteroffensive by the SAF and international diplomatic pressure—that much of central Khartoum, including the museum district, was recaptured. By then, however, the damage to Sudan's important cultural landmarks had already been done.

A Repository of Nubian Glory

The Sudan National Museum was established in 1971 and housed over 50,000 years of human history. Its galleries showcased everything from prehistoric stone tools and ancient Christian frescoes to monumental statues and pharaonic temples rescued from the waters of Lake Nasser during the UNESCO Nubia Campaign of the 1960s. The museum's collection includes artifacts from the Kingdom of Kush, the Kerma civilisation, and the Christian kingdoms of Nubia, shedding light on cultures often overshadowed by their northern neighbours in Egypt.

What made the museum especially significant was not just the artefacts it held, but the unique narrative it wove—a story of African ingenuity, political power, and religious transformation that challenged long-standing historical biases and centered Sudan within the broader tapestry of global heritage which transcended its modern day, and often contested borders.

Cultural Institutions in the Crossfire

Since the outbreak of conflict, the museum—like many institutions in the country—suffered from a lack of security, interrupted funding, and the physical dangers posed by armed clashes waged in and around it.  By early 2024, satellite images and reports from heritage professionals warned of structural damage to the museum's building and the increasing vulnerability of its collections to looting and environmental degradation.  

As the war raged on, nearly all archaeological research was suspended in the country and most conservation projects ceased. 

In September 2004, two hundred Sudanese researchers called on South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit to help recover valuable artefacts believed to have been looted from the National Museum in Khartoum, and thought by some to have been routed through South Sudan as a transit country for resale on the black market. 

Buhen temple at the grounds of Sudan National Museum in Khartoum before conflict

Current Situation

The first awful photos ARCA has seen of the devastated Sudan National Museum show one small glimmer of hope that at least the Buhen Dynasty temple, on the grounds of the museum, appears to be mostly intact.  Built by Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I (1473-1458 BCE), the temple is dedicated to Horus and once stood at the fortress of Buhan.  It was moved to Khartoum, when its find spot was covered by the resulting Lake Nasser, created by the Aswan Dam project in 1964.

The damage inside the museum and in its labs is more painful and the destruction and looting of pieces in the collection are still under assessment.  The Director of Museums at the National Corporation for Antiquities and Chair of the Sudanese Antiquities Repatriation Committee, Ikhlas Abdel Latif has stated that all the artefacts from the Gold Room, one of the rarest museum collections from the Kushite Empire, were systematically stolen, and many of the museum's other artefacts were also destroyed.

Outside, unexploded projectiles can be found embedded in the stone and will need to be removed carefully by explosive experts. 

In the Aftermath

The current situation in Sudan is critical, and serves as a painful reminder of the fragility of cultural heritage during times of conflict, as well as the fact that the human impact of devastation and war often supersedes and takes priority over heritage impact.  

That said, the loss of collections within the Sudan National Museum and its other heritage institutions and archaeological sites should not be under-recognised. The museum did more than simply display artefacts—it anchored identity, inspired pride, and offered future generations a connection to their roots. 

Losses such as those being recorded now, are and will continue to be a national tragedy, as well as a global one, long after the conflict subsides.

King Atlanersa (also Atlanarsa), Kushite ruler of the Napatan kingdom of Nubia (Reign c. 653–643 BCE)

In the meantime, digital preservation efforts, diaspora scholarship, and international partnerships are called upon to help safeguard what could not be protected from afar. The world must not turn away. The ruins of Nubia tell a story that spans millennia and whether or not that story continues depends not just on the past—but on how we choose to protect it today.

Can you give us an introduction about yourself?

I’m honoured to be part of this interview and to share my journey in cultural heritage protection and the fight against the illicit trafficking of antiquities.  My background combines extensive experience in cultural heritage preservation with a strong focus on safeguarding archaeological sites and cultural assets in conflict zones.  Early in my career, I worked at the National Archaeological Museum of Aleppo and later at the Syrian Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums (DGAM), where I engaged in efforts to protect heritage under various circumstances.

Over the years, I’ve collaborated with international organisations, including UNESCO, Europol, and the British Museum, as well as with law enforcement agencies on projects with the Italian Carabinieri TPC, and the Dutch National Police.  I also founded ArchaeologyIN, a social media network aimed at promoting cultural heritage awareness across ten countries.  This work remains close to my heart, particularly as we confront ongoing challenges to cultural heritage in the Middle East and North Africa region.

From Aleppo to Europe is quite a journey, can you tell us about that?

My journey into the world of cultural heritage protection began at the National Archaeological Museum of Aleppo.  I was fortunate to work at one of the region’s oldest and most prestigious institutions, which fuelled my passion for preserving Syria’s rich heritage.  My early days were filled with fieldwork, cataloguing artefacts, and collaborating with teams dedicated to archaeological research and preservation.  Later, I joined the Syrian Directorate-General for Antiquities and Museums in Damascus, where my knowledge and experience in project management and international cooperation increased.

With the outbreak of conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa region and in response to the emergence of new challenges, I launched ArchaeologyIN, a platform designed to raise public awareness about the importance of cultural heritage.  Over time, my work extended beyond Syria to encompass the broader MENA region.  My research and collaborations have focused on mitigating the risks to cultural assets in conflict zones, working with global institutions such as UNESCO and ARCA.  Each step of this journey has deepened my understanding of the complex network behind the illicit antiquities trade and strengthened my resolve to protect what remains.

How did you get involved with ARCA?

My connection with ARCA started through a shared passion for combatting art crime and protecting cultural heritage.  I first learned about ARCA’s work through its extensive publications and network of experts.  When I attended their postgraduate program as a Minerva scholar ten years ago, it became clear that this was more than an academic experience—it was a community of professionals committed to making a difference.  The program’s unique approach to blending practical case studies with cutting-edge research inspired me to stay involved.  I was later invited to join as a lecturer, an opportunity I gladly accepted.  Teaching at ARCA allows me to engage with dedicated professionals and students who share a passion for protecting cultural heritage and disrupting the networks that traffic antiquities.

Can you tell us about the purpose of the your course?

This summer, I’ll be teaching Unravelling the Hidden Market of Illicit Antiquities, a course that offers participants a deep dive into the international trafficking of antiquities. We’ll explore case studies from the past 50 to 60 years, focusing on how the trade has evolved.

The course is designed to be both informative and interactive. We’ll begin with a historical overview of the illicit trade, then move on to key players in the market, from prominent dealers to auction houses, museums, and galleries. We’ll uncover the intricate network behind this shadowy trade by examining the roles of source, transit, and market countries.  Our sessions will include practical discussions on the legal and ethical challenges of repatriation and the level of proof required to secure a successful claim.

Participants can expect a mix of lectures and interactive discussions, giving them the tools to better understand and confront this global issue.

Tell us life when you are in Amelia

Amelia is a hidden gem in the heart of Umbria, Italy.  Nestled atop a hill, this charming medieval town offers a serene escape from the hustle and bustle of modern life.  Narrow cobblestone streets wind through centuries-old buildings, leading to stunning views of the surrounding countryside.  Life in Amelia is peaceful yet vibrant, with a rich cultural history, making it the perfect setting for ARCA’s program.

For participants, Amelia becomes more than just a backdrop—it’s a place to immerse yourself in Italian culture, connect with fellow professionals, and reflect on the importance of preserving our shared heritage.

Can you tell us what makes ARCA's programmes special?

One of the most unique aspects of ARCA’s program is its emphasis on blending theoretical knowledge with real-world application.  Participants gain not only a deep understanding of the international art and antiquities crime landscape but also access to an extraordinary network of professionals.  This program creates an environment where scholars, law enforcement professionals, and cultural heritage experts from around the world come together to share insights and collaborate on solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in the field.

A highlight of the summer is The Amelia Conference – 2025, ARCA’s Annual Interdisciplinary Art Crime Conference, which will take place from June 20 to 22, 2025.  This conference is a rare opportunity for program participants to meet and engage with a wide range of experts in art crime and cultural heritage protection.  The conference offers participants the chance to learn from leading voices in the field, expand their professional networks, and gain practical insights that complement their studies.

By the time participants complete the program, they’re not only better equipped to address the complexities of art crime—they’re also part of a vibrant, global community dedicated to protecting cultural heritage.

If you could follow another professor's course, which one would it be? 

If I had the chance to take a course at ARCA, it would likely be “Discarded, Discovered, Collected: The Ethics of Antiquities Preservation and Publication” by Roberta Mazza.  This course offers invaluable insights into why are antiquities exchanged on the market and what drives price formation? It also covers grouond on what is special about antiquities with texts inscribed on them, and the sometimes vulnerable relationships between academics and actors in the art market who deal in this type of textual remains.

Do you have any advice for applicants and participants?

My advice for new participants is simple: embrace every opportunity this program offers.  Be curious, ask questions, and engage with the community.  The beauty of this program lies in its diversity—everyone brings a unique perspective to the table.

Also, take the time to explore Amelia and immerse yourself in its history and culture.  These experiences will enrich your understanding of cultural heritage in ways that go beyond the classroom.  Most importantly, remember that what you’re learning here has real-world implications. You’re joining a global effort to protect our shared history—an effort that is more important now than ever.

TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

Earlier this week, ARCA published an article building on an announcement made by Spain's Ministry of the Interior which involved the identification of a looted Egyptian object.  This investigation involved the Policía Nacional in collaboration with the Dutch Politie, and the expertise of forensic scholars, as well as the assistance of cooperating dealers and the support of art fair personnel.  These combined efforts resulted in the voluntary handover of the trafficked artefact in the Netherlands, and later, the reported arrest of a Barcelona-based ancient art dealer who, although unnamed by the authorities, was stated to have been charged with money laundering, smuggling, and document falsification.  

ARCA's article touched on its own research into the circulation of this suspect antiquity and to the object's identified Spanish handler.  In it, I named the dealer whom I (too) had ascertained as having been in possession of this piece after it arrived to Spain from Bangkok before being sold onward to other ancient art dealers in Germany and Switzerland.  

Shortly following the Spanish announcement, the bulk of the reporting by mainstream media covered this investigation by simply regurgitating the Spanish  government's official press release.  ARCA, being a research-based organisation which specifically examines (and sometimes reports on) forensic crimes that impact art and artefacts, opted to provide more detail.  To do so we discussed both the object itself and named its first seller, while also ensuring that in doing so we haven't compromised the work of international police forces.

Too frequently, trafficked artefact reporting becomes routinely formulaic, giving readers cursory information on an object's country of origin, value, age, and the names of involved agencies responsible for that object's recovery.  In this type of reportage, the artefacts themselves take second stage, often reduced to photo opportunities, where they are frequently overshadowed by fancy diplomatic handshakes. Whereas the story of the piece itself, its trafficking journey, its good faith and bad faith handlers and its place in history are often unconsidered, or left to vague statements and assumptions, much in the same way, archaeologists and art historians lament the loss of context when an artefact is extracted from its find spot and the object's history is lost during a clandestine excavation.  

Basic shapes of block statues

Likewise, when describing this partial 18th Dynasty Egyptian block statue most of the published news articles reduced the artefact to its period of creation, i.e., "a stolen Egyptian sculpture dated from 1450 BCE" or spoke to its rudimentary aesthetic characteristic, referring to the piece as simply as "an Egyptian head".  Smuggled clandestinely, often over great distances and hidden in shipments through multiple transit countries, by the time such looted antiquities appear on the ancient art market, where they are displayed in glittering European art galleries and art fairs, the pieces are no longer intact.  

In this case, the less informed buyer, might appreciate this sculpture's beautiful depiction of the head of an Egyptian male.  I, on the other hand, see its decapitated form as evidence of a crime scene.  I question whether or not this anonymous severed head, had likely been hacked off its body, or deliberately broken at the shoulders for ease of transport and smuggling, knowing that unfortunately this once complete representation of a man, is now absent the rest of his body.  

During Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty, the artisan who sculpted this black-granite representation of a once-living human would have worked the hard stone with care and precision.  The focus of his efforts would have been to respectfully express the belief that the deceased person's Ka, his eternal life force, when separated from his earthly body at death, would be travelling between the worlds of the living and the dead and would need to find his eternal home inside this single memorial block statue, created expressly for this purpose.  Carved to represent the likeness of the deceased and placed inside a sanctuary, had this head remained with the rest of its body, we might also have learned, through inscriptions, the name of the esteemed person the sculptor sought to portray when he had creating this memorial artwork.  

But why the need for a second article? 

Over the past several days there has been scattered chatter via various social media sites where the veracity of my statements regarding who the arrested Spanish dealer was have been the subject of discussion.  

Art News journalist Karen Ho, doing her best to report the news and remain impartial to the contentious subject, wrote: 

...the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, has claimed in a blog post that the individual in question is Jaume Bagot Peix, operator of the J. Bagot Arqueología gallery in Barcelona, Spain.

Art lawyer Justine Philippart, when pointed to ARCA's original blog article, stated on LinkedIn:

This article is fake news. Nothing is true. Thus, for example, Mr. Bagot was not arrested.

TEFAF Maastricht 2020 Image Credit: ARCA

According to Spain's Ministry of the Interior, following an investigation begun in 2023, the Policía Nacional have arrested a Barcelona gallery owner (Jaume Bagot Peix, operator of J. Bagot Arqueología) for allegedly committing the crimes of money laundering, smuggling, and document falsification in relation to this black granite head of a funerary monument for a high ranking official from the reign of Hatshepsut or Tuthmosis III in Egypt. 

TEFAF Maastricht 2022 Image Credit: ARCA

Valued at 190,000 euros, the circa 1504-1450 BCE artefact had been acquired by the Barcelona ancient art dealer in July 2015 via an intermediary in Bangkok, Thailand.  ARCA notes that this partial statue was documented on social media sites and up for sale through a Swiss-based art dealer during the short-lived European Fine Art Fair in 2020 and again with this same dealer when the fair reopened post-Covid in 2022.  

Having been the subject of a joint-European policing initiative which resulted in law enforcement authorities with the Dutch Politie in the Netherlands sharing evidence with their Spanish counterparts, police in Spain were able to concretised that this Egyptian artefact was illicit, despite it having been in free circulation for seven years through several sales passages occurring via dealers in Spain, Germany, and Switzerland.  Prior to these transactions, the object had traveled though the transit county of Thailand via an intermediary in Bangkok. 

The 18th Dynasty head depicts its patron wearing a short wig revealing the ears as well as defined almond-shaped eyes and prominent eyebrows.  In its complete and original form, the head would have once been attached at the shoulders to the rest of its memorial block statue representing a seated non-royal person.  

The Swiss gallery that had purchased the artwork via another ancient art dealer in Germany, freely relinquished the artefact to the Dutch authorities once it was determined that the piece was suspect and had been acquired via the Spanish gallery owner, who had already been linked to the illicit trade in antiquities in conflict zones such as North Africa and the Middle East. 

To circulate this illicit artefact, the Spanish gallerist provided his trusting buyer, with a document that substituted collected information relating to several archaeological pieces belonging to a Spanish collection from the 70s making it appear as though the head had been part of a legitimate and documented collection prior to Egypt's antiquities laws tightening in 1983.  A not uncommon technique, suspect dealers have often attempted to "whiten" freshly looted material, by substituting, reusing, or outright fabricating documents of ownership, which, if not carefully explored, cosmetically appear to provide a legitimate "pedigree" to an antiquity which in reality is more recent plunder from an illicit excavation.  

It is for this reason, that the dealer who has been arrested has been charged not only with smuggling and money laundering, but also with document falsification of the object's provenance record. 

Point of reference in 2018, Frédéric Loore revealed in Paris Match that Jaume Bagot's network used various smuggling routes, notably via Egypt and Jordan to the United Arab Emirates, before returning to Catalonia after transiting through Germany or Thailand.

By:  Lynda Albertson

NB: For now, the Spanish authorities have elected to publish their arrest announcement withholding the name of the charged ancient art dealer.  

The genesis of this Spanish investigation can be traced back to a routine documentation check conducted at a booth during the 2021 Feriarte art fair in Madrid. During this examination, law enforcement officers engaged with the seller, raising inquiries about the provenance and collecting history of a particularly suspicious stone capital.

This object dated to the Emirate of Granada, also known as the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the medieval Islamic state that ruled the southern Iberian Peninsula from the 13th to the 15th century.  Established in 1238 after the fall of the Almohad Caliphate, the Nasrid dynasty successfully maintained its independence amidst the Christian Reconquista and is renowned for having fostered a vibrant society characterised by intricate architecture, advanced scholarship, and a rich blend of Islamic, Christian, and Jewish influences, the most important of which is the iconic Alhambra palace complex. 

A review of the capital's paperwork shed important light on a series of irregularities, which, upon further investigation.  The invoice showed that it had been acquired, along with two other capitals, in an antiques establishment in Granada, but had no invoice number and the VAT amount had not been broken down.  This turned out to be the first lead that allowed officers to identify the group of individuals responsible for the circulation and laundering of similar pedigreed artefacts into the ancient art market via Granada, to Barcelona, as well as on to Valencia and Madrid.

Many of these pieces utilised similar false attestations of ownership claiming that the object on offer had  originated from a family collection which could be traced back to an important restorer who worked on the Alhambra two centuries ago.  The paperwork provided also claimed that the cultural property in question had been part of the family's private collection prior to 1985, the year that Law 16/1985 established a new legal framework for the protection, enhancement and transmission to future generations of the Spanish Historical Heritage.  

🚩Intervenidas 71 piezas arqueológicas procedentes de expolio en una galería de #Barcelona

➡️6 detenidos por formar parte de un grupo criminal como presuntos responsables de delitos contra el #patrimonio histórico, pertenencia a grupo criminal y #blanqueo de capitales pic.twitter.com/6IGcaVtLP5

— Policía Nacional (@policia) January 19, 2024