The Antiquities
Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research (ATHAR) Project has published a
critical report on West Asian antiquities trafficking taking place more or less
out in the open on Facebook.
Michael Press
Last month, the
ATHAR Project published an important report on West Asian antiquities
trafficking taking place more or less out in the open — on Facebook.
ATHAR is an acronym
for Antiquities Trafficking and Heritage Anthropology Research. It is also the
Arabic word for “antiquities.” The project is led by two experts on West Asian
antiquities who co-authored the report: Amr Al-Azm, a Syrian archaeologist once
of Syria’s Directorate-General of Archaeology and Museums and the University of
Damascus; and Katie Paul, an anthropologist with years of experience
investigating looting and smuggling in the region.
The report,
“Facebook’s Black Market in Antiquities: Trafficking, Terrorism, and War
Crimes,” published in June, is the result of nearly two years of research — the
authors began tracking antiquities trafficking on Facebook in October 2017.
(They had previously published an interim report in World Politics Review in
August 2018; and their Facebook project was the subject of a BBC story in May
2019.) The new report is naturally much more detailed.
The thing that
strikes the reader first about antiquities trafficking organized via Facebook
is its sheer scale. For the report, Al-Azm and Paul identified and monitored 95
Arabic-language Facebook Groups (Paul told Hyperallergic that since the report
was written this number has risen to over 100) with 488 administrators, and a
total of well over 1 million members. The reach of these 95 Groups is global.
Only a small portion of these members are likely active buyers and sellers on
Facebook — but based on a case study of four groups based in Syria, where the
authors show the percentage of active users ranges from 1.6% to 9.3% of total
membership, they are still likely in the tens of thousands.
(The exact number of
individual members of these groups is uncertain. The authors give a total of
1,947,195 members at the time of the report, but members who belong to more
than one group are counted multiple times. Paul said in an email to Hyperallergic that, based on sampling, she
estimates that there are over 1,800,000 unique members.)
The report details
various aspects of online antiquities trafficking. It shows how integrated
these buyers and sellers truly are, in a network spanning not only West Asia,
but also several continents. It demonstrates that coins and other small finds,
while often ignored in media accounts of more monumental heritage, make up the
vast majority of artifacts offered for sale. Al-Azm and Paul also discuss clear
examples of looting to order: Interested buyers will post requests for objects
they are interested in, and shortly after (sometimes within days) other group
members will post images claimed to be of freshly looted objects — some shown
still in the ground. In their case study of four Syrian groups, Al-Azm and Paul
show that buyers are located predominantly in West Asia (and secondarily in
North Africa). They interpret this reasonably as indicating purchases are made
primarily by middlemen, who might later smuggle the objects abroad. At the same
time, several buyers were located outside the region, particularly in Europe
and North America.
The ATHAR Project is
far from alone. It is in fact the latest in a series of studies by scholars and
investigative journalists on the illegal antiquities trades in West Asia and
online. Studies of satellite imagery since 2014 have revealed recent systematic
looting at sites in Syria, large and small. Interviews with on-the-ground
participants in the trade have provided a wealth of detail and stunning
anecdotes, though the information is often hard to confirm. Other studies have
investigated the mechanics of antiquities trafficking on internet sites as well
as brick-and-mortar dealers and auction houses.
In many cases, the
ATHAR Project’s findings corroborate what was already known (or at least
suspected) from these previous reports: There was a spike in looting in Syria
since 2011; coins and other small finds play the largest role in recent
trafficking throughout the Middle East (because they are easy to smuggle and
launder); loot-to-order is a common occurrence in antiquities looting (though
not necessarily via Facebook). That antiquities trafficking has been made
easier by a number of online platforms —from Facebook, to eBay, to Amazon, to
WhatsApp — has been clear for several years. One notorious case involved a
Coptic papyrus fragment of the New Testament book of Galatians offered
illegally for sale on eBay in 2012 — which turned up, two years later, in the
possession of Hobby Lobby. It has also been clear that a large percentage of
objects being smuggled out of Syria are fake. (While fakes are not singled out
by the ATHAR Project report, that many of the objects appearing on Facebook are
fakes is clear from the images.) The value of the ATHAR Project report in these
cases is to provide hard data and greater detail.
But all of these
reports must be read carefully and critically. Many otherwise solid studies
overemphasize the role of “terrorists” (often singling out ISIS) in profiting
from antiquities trafficking — even though looting in Syria has been conducted
or overseen by all parties to the conflict, and ISIS is apparently not
responsible for most of it. Sober articles in academic journals that barely
mention ISIS are promoted in exaggerated fashion, hyping ISIS from their
headlines on. In the case of the ATHAR Project report, its use of the terms
“terrorists” and “violent extremists” from the title onward has been amplified
by news coverage.
(In an email to
Hyperallergic, Paul explained that the report highlights terrorism in order to
show that antiquities trafficking continues to fund extremist groups even after
the fall of ISIS, since they were never the only such group to profit from
these activities.)
Focusing on ISIS or
“terrorists” lets other groups, especially state actors like Syrian
governmental forces, off the hook for profiting from trafficking. It also
reinforces a loaded term. “Terrorists” often ends up referring only to those
non-state militant groups that one’s government is not allied with. What
matters more: that specific groups labeled “terrorists” are profiting from
antiquities trafficking, or that artifacts are being stolen on a massive scale,
often to fund continuing cycles of violence by all parties in an armed conflict?
Looting expands dramatically under wartime conditions because people are
desperate to find ways to survive. Working against antiquities trafficking
“must be part of a multidimensional strategy that addresses humanitarian
needs,” as Sam Hardy (an expert on conflict antiquities) has put it, “or it may
cause further harm.”
Who is supporting these studies also matters
greatly. ATHAR is a volunteer project, but many other studies receive
financial support. Between 2014 and 2017, The American Schools of Oriental
Research (ASOR) Cultural Heritage Initiatives received millions of dollars in
funding from the U.S. State Department — not a disinterested party in various
conflicts in West Asia and North Africa. While ASOR CHI has carried out
important work in Syria and Iraq (some of which I have cited above) as well as
Libya, it has not expanded its purview to Yemen. The fact that the greatest
threat to antiquities in the country has been from the coalition led by
American ally Saudi Arabia may not be unrelated. Meanwhile, the NGO Antiquities
Coalition has joined forces with the Saudi-supported Yemeni government to
publicize threats to Yemen’s cultural heritage. The result is that the
organization has repeatedly singled out the Houthis (along with Al Qaeda and
ISIS) as a threat while ignoring the Saudi role. To its credit, the ATHAR
Project report has a section devoted to Yemen, clearly pointing to cases of
looting in both Houthi and Saudi coalition held areas. (The reader should note
that the Antiquities Coalition has funded work on antiquities trafficking in
West Asia, including some previous support for The Day After project of which
ATHAR Project co-director Al-Azm is a founder. Paul, the other co-director of
the ATHAR Project, previously worked for the Antiquities Coalition. However, in
cases such as Yemen it appears that that work may not be nonpartisan but
politically motivated.)
Regardless of where
their financial support comes from, these projects often carry out important,
high-quality work. But these funding sources should make us stop and think: Why
are these studies being supported or carried out in the first place?
One reason seems to be to affect government
policy. This may be why many
of these studies repeatedly use terms like “terrorists” or “violent extremists”
or “criminal groups,” since these are popular targets of politicians. Since the
publication of the ATHAR Project report, its authors have submitted a letter to
the US House of Representatives during counterterrorism hearings. In several
studies the authors state clearly that they hope that improved data and models
will lead to better policy.
This is a common
assumption — that flawed policy results from flawed data. But is it really
true? Think about policy discussion in recent years
in the US, on issues ranging from gun control to climate change, to healthcare,
to home foreclosures. It seems that better data are often not wanted, because
the stated goals of legislation are often different from the actual goals. In
the case of antiquities trafficking, the continued emphasis on ISIS as a unique
looter of antiquities, even after many experts warned for years that all
parties in the Syrian civil war have profited from looting, suggests that there
is more going on than simply bad data.
Experts would do
well to continue to work on the problem of antiquities trafficking — but they
(and the rest of us) would also do well to stop and think how that work is
framed and used.
https://hyperallergic.com/508907/how-social-media-is-allowing-for-illegal-antiquities-trafficking/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20071219%20-%20How%20Social&utm_content=Daily%20071219%20-%20How%20Social+CID_b08f978406406b33bde0f31b91d1dd22&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter
