Steve Scherer of Bloomberg is reporting that Italian courts have upheld the conviction of Giacomo Medici,who was charged and convicted of stealing antiquities and selling them to museums around the world. Medici was convicted in 2004, fined $14 million and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After the appeal the sentence was reduced to 8 years. The Getty Museum's former antiquities curator is currently fighting charges of smuggling in Italy as well.
Now that brings me to a topic that I missed last month about the cultural heritage of the US. When we think of the smuggling and illicit sales of antiquities we typically think of Italy and Greece. It appears in the four corners region of New Mexico there was some antiquities smuggling and sales as well. Craig Childs of The Los Angeles Times reported on a two year undercover investigation and $300,000.00 in sales of illicit Indian artifacts and cultural material. Here is an excerpt from the LA Times article, but the full article is well worth reading as well.
Childs states The federal action, a lot of locals think, was akin to busting a bunch of good ol' boys with a backwoods still. They don't give much thought to how illegal digging in the Four Corners has decimated one of the richest archaeological regions in the country, putting thousands of years of human history into private hands.
Pulling artifacts from the land without documentation and adding them to private collections is a form of archaeological genocide, erasing the record of a people from a place.
Yet for many in the Four Corners area, it is like collecting seashells. Sunday picnics used to include shovels. An old-timer once told me that there were so many pots they were like pumpkins on the ground, and few saw anything wrong with digging and collecting. The pastime was hardly frowned on until the 1980s, when a similar federal raid blew open this same town of Blanding.
One of those targeted in this most recent sting was James Redd, 60, a longtime family doctor and one of the most prominent citizens in Blanding.
Redd and his wife, who was also targeted in the raids, faced similar charges in the 1990s when they were caught digging on state land. After a lengthy legal battle, the Redds were acquitted.
Redd was found dead on his property last Tuesday, the day after his home was searched. It appears that he committed suicide.
The following morning, community members gathered at the foot of the Redds' driveway, some weeping, some deeply angered, saying that agents had gone too far in a town where pot hunting was once a respectable part of life.
The sting extended beyond Blanding to nearby Colorado and New Mexico. Forrest Fenn, a wealthy collector in Santa Fe, also had his home searched, although he was not named in the indictment. Agents entered Fenn's home on Monday and confiscated artifacts, records and his computers.
To read the full NY Times article, click HERE.
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