On April 13, 2019, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in Iowa was to open a temporary exhibit titled Written in Stone: The Rosetta Stone Exhibition. Travel from Origins Museum Institute in El Paso, Texas, the show was scheduled to take place at the Presidential Library through October, with an “exact replica” made from a cast of the original Rosetta Stone alongside other rare and authentic artifacts from the ancient “Middle East”. The Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that the exhibition was to present a “chronology of authentic artifacts” including “some of the oldest idols and sacred representations of deities ever found”. Previewing the exhibit on April 8, however, I noticed something was wrong. The engraved images on the stamp and cylinder seals were odd, the dates questionable, the sizes incongruous, but most importantly, all the seals on display appeared to have been carved by the same hand despite allegedly being created in different periods.
Later that night, I discovered that the “authentic artifacts” I had seen that afternoon in glass cases were also available for purchase online at the Sadigh Gallery in New York. In collaboration with University of Iowa Associate Professor of Art History, Björn Anderson, we concluded that most (if not all) of the objects included in the exhibit were neither rare nor authentic. , but rather modern counterfeits. The exhibition was canceled three days before it opened.
The works were loaned by the Origins Museum whose collector and founder, Marty Martin, bought them from the Sadigh Gallery. As Martin describes it in a recent podcasthe found Sadigh online and browsing through the many categories of items for sale he (unsurprisingly) discovered “just what [he] was looking for. Martin purchased over 100 parts that were guaranteed to be “authentic”; each came with a certificate of authenticity. Sadigh provided false documents which tricked Martin. The Sadigh Gallery »Certificate of authenticityis almost laughable in its quality, but perhaps its cheeky simplicity should make us wonder which makes a satisfactory provenance.
The Sadigh Gallery was raided by police in 2021. Investigators discovered a “functional manufacturing studio” behind the storefront, with a random assembly line that transformed the “replicas in “old” artifacts.” Viewed individually, a fake Sadigh might be able to perform their trick, but with as many people together as they were at the Hoover, they betrayed themselves. In my eyes, the presence of a visible hand at work in the carving of all the seals from different periods indicated a common workshop origin; a modern, not ancient.
The Hoover incident exists within a larger, problematic institutional framework that does not adequately value provenance, property history, or archaeological origin.
Last month, in March 2023, investigations revealed the dubious origins of more than 1,000 objects in the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s collection, which attests to the fact that the problem is widespread. These reports demonstrate the close connection between conflict zones, looting and contemporary collecting practices and norms. As Tess Davis, executive director of the Antiquities Coalition, asked“If the Met lets all these things slip through the cracks, what hope do we have for the rest of the art market?”
Lack of provenance is troubling in the case of Middle Eastern antiquities because of the rampant looting that occurred during and after the American occupation of Iraq, which led directly to an increased demand for these objects, as has long been denounced artists, activists and experts. As an art historian Zainab Bahrani and Iraqi-American artist Michel Rakowitz argued, the West fetishizes the archaeological heritage of the East while showing complete disregard for the people who now live in these regions. In a conference 2021Rakowitz discusses the goals of his ongoing project, The invisible enemy should not exist. Recreating looted, excavated and displaced objects, these “reappearances” challenge viewers to see the connections between people, places and objects in more meaningful ways. His work highlights the Western art market’s “voracious” appetite for Middle Eastern Antiques. An open secret is accomplice in looting, involving associated collectors and cultural institutions in the same unethical act. And the great disconnect between the exhibition space and the outside world allows and encourages this.
The Hoover was excited about his exhibit and keen to celebrate knowledge of the past by creating a special experience for museum visitors. But an exhibition detached from the sources and stories of these objects erases questions that might otherwise arise: what construction of the past is celebrated? What kind of history is written when items missing from recorded archaeological finds are seen in this unfounded manner? How can an exhibit label provide enough context for ancient objects whose origins have been obscured or unstudied?
When objects enter a museum, there is an unspoken assumption that someone exercised due diligence to ensure an item was obtained legally And ethically. But the documents, where they exist, can be easily falsified. Recent returns of authentic antiques looted (either as a result of the US invasion of Iraq or the Gulf War) to Emory University, Cornell UniversityTHE Museum of the Bible, and among private collectors, all show that the problem is glaring, permanent and unresolved — that a greater change in market and collection practices is needed. While some suggest that such a change is already underway, these arguments rely too much on an all too often fictitious separation between legitimate and illegitimate market spaces. For example, in the latest case at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, a sphinx furniture prop was purchased by the university’s Carlos Museum based on false documentation indicating it entered the States. States in 1969. Emory was duped by “what appeared to be documentation of legitimate provenance.” As one FBI agent described it, “We realize there was no ill intent on the part of Emory University.”
Counterfeits arise when there is an established demand in the market for genuine antiques, as the supply is limited. While the item in Emory’s collection was stolen during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the lack of provenance bridges the gap between a looted item and a forged item. Both create a market without transparency. In some cases, counterfeits are sold at a more affordable price, and the lack of meaningful documents may be overlooked by a zealous collector’s desire to have an encounter with the ancient world, as widespread and imaginative as such a world is. can be. This was certainly the case for the fake objects exhibited at the Hoover. The fact that the Hoover is one of 15 presidential libraries run by the federal government of the United States whose right to display non-Middle Eastern history no one disputed is problematic, especially since at the time of the exhibition there were US troops on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq (where some 2,500 soldiers are today). written in stone came with explanatory museum labels for display and a catalog, which was only intended for use by museum staff. Accompanied by these artificial materials, the exhibition presented a nonchalant demonstration of colonial power. The museum relied on a disconnect that distances the public from conflicts abroad. I was in my first year of PhD. class at the University of Iowa when I spotted fake Hoovers. I didn’t feel safe, and even if I was right, the authority of the museum display still ruled over me. But, I was able to connect the objects to the Sadigh gallery after just a few minutes of searching online.
It is important to remember that whenever we engage in the act of reconstructing the past, no matter how great the effort, we carry our cultural baggage – political, historical and ethical. These objects take on new narratives when presented without provenance, eliminating the critical distance between real and fake, subject and object, past and present, history and projection.
