The Illicit Antiquities Scandal: What is Has Done to Classical Archaeology Collections, in American Journal of Archaeology

We can expect a book with revelations of this kind to prompt a strong reaction from the powerful in the acquiring museums, with talk of world heritage and cosmopolitan culture. They may particularly grumble in feeling that U.S. museums are now being targeted by the more prosperous countries of origin seeking to recover what was taken (while poorer countries of origin such as Albania may not have the resources to pursue this route effectively). There are at least two reasons why they might be targeted—if indeed they are. One is admirable: U.S. laws and their enforcement by U.S. courts are such that wrongdoing can be revealed, proven, and reversed in a way that may be hard in other jurisdictions. One is not admirable: the common close nexus in the United States of museums holding charitable privileges with energetic private collectors who are also patrons and benefactors, the two interests working together with the celebratory curators, attributors, and identifiers—a kind of partnership that has long seemed so productive in taking ambitious U.S. museums forward—may come to be seen as having a darker side that makes it a mixed, even a cursed blessing.