Indiana Jones Wasn’t the Only Tomb-Raiding Thief
Is repatriation the only way to resolve the problem of looted art in major museums? The monks of Mount Athos may have some alternatives.
Back in Egypt: Nedjemankh didn’t keep up with the Kardashian.
Photographer: AMIR MAKAR/AFPThere was a revealing congruity between two dissimilar objects at the just-concluded Frieze art show in London’s Regent’s Park. Both were exhibits by David Aaron, a gallery based in Berkeley Square. The first was a towering 68 million-year-old skeleton of a juvenile tyrannosaurus rex, all asnarl with its fossilized tail in mid-swing through the air; the other, tiny by comparison, a 3,600-year-old ushabti or tomb figurine from pharaonic Egypt, just 25.3 centimeters (fewer than 10 inches) high. The information posted beside each one indicated identical paths to the show: Both were checked against the Interpol database of missing art, and certified by the International Association of Dealers of Ancient Art.
It’s part of the reassurance required in a world where stolen artifacts (or dinosaurs) can be everywhere. You don’t want to pay $20 million for T.rex Jr. only to have the authorities sweep in and confiscate it.