Wikileaks: Schøyen suppressed, UCL incantation bowls report published
An Inquiry into the provenance of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls delivered into the possession of UCL by, or on the instruction of, Mr Martin Schøyen, until now suppressed, has just been published on Wikileaks (under the title, "UK possession of art works looted from Iraq: Schoyen UCL Inquiry report, 2009 [2006]").More later...

Cypriot antiquities, Munich State Prehistoric Collection
I found an exhibition catalogue of Cypriot antiquities in the Munich State Prehistoric Collection, though the catalogue actually has frustratingly little information in it.Nevertheless, I hoped that the catalogue could perhaps (only) be (vaguely) useful to affirm that: first, international public and private antiquities collections hold many unprovenienced artefacts (1) from Cyprus, many of which are probably looted artefacts; and second, thereby, those collectors directly or indirectly supported the looting of cultural heritage from Cyprus.(I'm afraid that all German-English translations are mine.)IntroductionNow the Chief Curator of t

recently looted UCL Incantation Bowls: suppressed report findings revealed
Explaining everything I didn't in my earlier note about Lord Renfrew on UCL incantation bowls, in today's Observer, Vanessa Thorpe and James Doeser have reported on the "UK scholars linked to 'stolen' bowls of Babylon".Lord Renfrew revealed the suppressed report findings by using his parliamentary privilege (protection from prosecution for slander, libel, breach of contract, etc.) and placing the findings in the House of Lords library. The 'secr

Lord Renfrew on UCL incantation bowls
Over on Looting Matters, David Gill's posted an excerpt from Lord Renfrew's speech to the House of Lords, in which he discussed 654 Aramaic incantation bowls. UCL had studied the bowls for Norwegian businessman Martin Schøyen; when concerns were raised that the bowls had been looted from and should be returned to Iraq, UCL instead returned them to Schøyen.Quoting an excerpt from Gill's excerpt, Lord Renfrew reported that the UCL Committee of Inquiry concluded that:they had indeed been

Fielding, Jansen, Hellenist propaganda: Dalibard's UNESCO Cypriot cultural heritage report
I've finally checked some of my sources' (supposed) sources in the British Library's newspaper archive, like John Fielding's 1976 report on the Rape of Northern Cyprus.Fielding discussed Jacques Dalibard's 1976 Cypriot cultural heritage report for UNESCO, and Hellenist propaganda has polluted understanding of both. Unsurprisingly, Michael Jansen's work has yet again been called into question.(UNESCO first suppressed, then released a heavily-edited version of Dalibard's original report on the treatment of cultural heritage in both northern and southern Cyprus. I've previously noted what Jansen