National Treasures

...For Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, the encyclopedic museum is a key force “for understanding, tolerance, and the dissipation of ignorance and superstition, where the artifacts of one time and one culture can be seen next to those of other times and other cultures without prejudice...

...Well, while there is no denying that cultures do not arise autonomously, and while we humans certainly share a common heritage, denying the distinctiveness of ancient cultures strains credulity...

...And the point of this “retentionism” is nationalist: By tracing a direct line between the current nation-state and peoples who lived in the same territory hundreds, or even thousands, of years before, modern governments legitimize their existence and right to govern...

...In addition to failing to prevent looting—which is increasing, despite ever-tighter restrictions on acquiring cultural property—nationalist cultural property laws are restricting the world’s access to our common heritage...

...He seems also to ignore those modern nation-states which can legitimately trace their lineage—and fi nd the roots of their system of government—in the history of their land long before the establishment of their modern state...

...In fact, modern states do not have their origins in antiquity, and antiquities cannot and do not belong to particular nations...

...The vases of classical Greece are different from the vases of ancient China, and the very fact that we can talk about various cultures’ infl uencing each other argues that there are, indeed, distinct cultures...

...The jewel, which was created for the empress in 1855 by a Parisian jeweler named Fran?ois Kramer, had been sold at auction with the rest of the French crown jewels in 1887 and purchased by Caroline Astor of New York...

...And the virtues of partage also seem clear...

...Collections at Harvard, Yale, and the British Museum, among others, were built under this system, known as partage, which also resulted in the expansion of local museums in Iraq and Egypt...

...Cuno would like to see archaeologists refuse to participate in excavations unless all parties agreed to work under partage, but his plan would not be effective unless adopted by virtually all archaeologists who excavate outside their home countries, which isn’t going to happen...

...Ultimately, however, Cuno argues that the problem with today’s nationalist/retentionist cultural property laws is that they promote sectarian division...

...This means that the Shang dynasty bronze he discusses in the preface is as much the heritage of the people of modern Britain as it is of the people of modern China...

...They comprise antiquity, and antiquity knows no borders...

...Certainly modern states have made false claims about the past, but to say that any attempt to connect a modern nationstate to a particular segment of antiquity is false is disingenuous...

...A]s of 2004, the nation’s Agency for Cultural Affairs had ranked nearly 20,000 cultural properties and designated only some 1,000 as National Treasures, which in most cases are ineligible for export, leaving 95 percent of the cultural properties available for export...

...We can appreciate others and value our shared humanity while retaining pride in our distinctive heritage...

...Nor did partage benefi t only the universities who employed archaeologists...

...BY MARY KATHERINE ASCIK Arecent item in the New York Times highlighted the Louvre’s purchase of a brooch belonging to Empress Eug?nie, wife of Napoleon III...

...The solution is to “all work together to counter the nationalist basis of national laws and international conventions and agreements and promote a principle of shared stewardship of our common heritage...

...Still, James Cuno has performed a valuable service with this timely, intelligent, and provocative discussion of a vexing problem in modern cultural politics— a problem considerably older, in fact, than the Empress Eug?nie’s jeweled brooch...

...Distinctions among ancient cultures, and connections between those cultures and modern states, do not necessarily lead to sectarian division...

...Certainly he is correct that certain contemporary governments— Cuno highlights Turkey, China, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein—have twisted history to suit their purposes, but he maintains that such misappropriations of history are not simply abuses practiced by certain regimes but an inescapable characteristic of the modern nation-state...

...Antiquities represent the world’s “common ancient heritage” and, as such, belong to all of us: “Antiquities are the cultural property of all humankind—of people, not peoples— evidence of the world’s ancient past and not that of a particular modern nation,” Cuno writes...

...Cuno calls for a return to partage, with its generous sharing of antiquities between countries, and a broader dispersal of antiquities around the world...

...They “nationalize and fail to protect our ancient heritage, and they conspire against a greater understanding and appreciation of the world’s many, diverse cultures...

...Mary Katherine Ascik is a writer in Washington...

...They promote a sectarian view of culture and encourage the politics of identity at a time when nationalism and sectarian violence are resurgent around the world...

...It’s diffi cult to disagree with the idea that people benefi t when antiquities of other countries can be seen in museums around the world...

...Cuno contrasts Italy’s laws with those of Japan, which “ranks its cultural property by quality and rarity and allows the export of much of it...

...Yet Cuno argues that any attempt by any nation-state to tie itself to antiquity is illegitimate, an attempt by the powerful to create legitimacy for their rule...

...He denies the possibility that any nation is capable of taking an honest look at its past, and objectively examining its history...

...Museums are forced to adhere to an increasing number of laws and regulations in acquiring antiquities, and with the emphasis on keeping artifacts in the country of origin, it is more diffi cult to legally acquire antiquities from other countries...

...The result: decreased access to our common heritage...

...Of course, whether we could actually return to anything like partage, as Cuno favors, seems unlikely...

...As Cuno points out, the collections at the great museums of the world could not have been put together under our current system of cultural property laws, and the millions of people who have marveled at these collections would be poorer for not having seen them...

...According to Cuno, during the past 50 years, national laws and international agreements on cultural property have moved from a more general concern with protecting such property to a concern with ensuring that nation-states retain cultural artifacts found within the borders of their territory, or reacquire them if they have been removed from the country...

...Antiquity, says Cuno, is our “common ancient heritage” and “cannot be subdivided and nationalized...

...No one, Italian or otherwise, profits much from antiquities gathering dust in storerooms in Italian museums...

...Similarly, a medieval German monstrance he mentions is as much the heritage of modern China as modern Germany...

...Archaeologists working under partage invariably built up the collections of museums in the countries in which they were excavating, increasing local people’s access to the antiquities found on their land...

...The brooch remained in her family until the Louvre acquired it in a private sale this year...

...The Louvre’s attitude illustrates what James Cuno says, in Who Owns Antiquity?, is the controlling idea behind the current laws and agreements protecting antiquities: Antiquities belong to the nation-state within whose borders they are found, and items which have migrated outside those borders should be returned to their “proper” owners...

...Of special importance to Cuno is the promotion of the encyclopedic museum...

...Today, by contrast, the governments of host countries frequently refuse to part even with minor archaeological fi nds...

...Once archaeologists from places like Great Britain, Germany, and the United States would undertake digs in countries like Egypt and Iraq, with the understanding that any fi nds would be shared between the host country and the archaeologists...

...States argue—falsely, in Cuno’s view—that antiquities “belong to the modern nation as . . . the origins of its modern culture and identity...

...Here, Cuno is less convincing...

...The ostensible purpose of these laws is to protect cultural artifacts and prevent looting and illegal traffi cking...

...Antiquities are defi ned as objects created 150 years ago or more: By Cuno’s defi nition, Britain would have no special claim on the Magna Carta, despite the fact that a clear connection can be made between the Great Charter of 1215 and the government of modern Britain...

...But in fact, writes Cuno, such laws, “while said to be aimed at protecting archaeological sites and the scientifi c knowledge they contain . . . are really intended to keep cultural heritage within the borders of the nation within which such property is found...

...A strong identity, national or otherwise, is not a bar to appreciation of other cultures, or peaceful coexistence...

...Cuno argues that nations are wrong when they attempt to trace a connection between antiquity and modern nation-states, or say that a particular modern nation has a particular connection to an ancient culture...

...In fact, as Cuno suggests, by promoting the politics of identity, retentionist cultural property laws, and the nationalism that underlies them, lead directly to discrimination and violence against other cultures or ethnic groups...

...According to the Times, the Louvre and the Friends of the Louvre wished to acquire the brooch because they “decided the jewel belonged in France...

...Encyclopedic museums” feature collections which “comprise representative examples of the world’s artistic legacy” and “direct attention to distant cultures, asking visitors to respect the values of others and seek connections between cultures...

...He argues convincingly that current cultural property laws are too retentionist, and cites the example of Italy, which in 2001 asked the United States to impose import restrictions on a vast range of artifacts—“virtually every kind of object produced in or imported to the land we now call Italy over 1,200 years of recorded human history”— despite the fact that, “by any measure, Italy’s museums are engorged with antiquities and their storerooms have long been fi lled to capacity with antiquities waiting to be catalogued, studied, and published...

...Attempts to build a national identity grounded in the distant past are not just wrong, he argues, but pernicious, serving to create divisions between people by uniting the citizens of a particular state in the belief that they are “bound together by some collective genius that distinguishes them from everyone else in the world...

...Such arguments, of course, are in harmony with Cuno’s ultimate goal: the elimination of sectarian division and violence by increasing our understanding of other cultures...