Jerusalem: one of the largest custodians of the Israel Museum, American billionaire Michael Steinhardt, approached the major Israeli art institution in 2007 with a recently purchased artwork: a 2,200-year-old Greek text carved in limestone,
But shortly after it was displayed, an expert noticed something strange—two pieces of text found during excavations near Jerusalem a year earlier fit into a slab of limestone like a puzzle. It soon became clear that Steinhardt’s bullet came from the same cave where the other fragments were excavated.
Last month, Steinhardt surrendered the piece, known as the Heliodorus Stele, and 179 other artifacts worth nearly $70 million as part of a landmark deal with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to avoid prosecution. Eight Neolithic masks lent to the Israel Museum by Steinhardt for a major exhibition in 2014 were also confiscated under the deal, two of which are on display at the museum.
Museums around the world are facing greater scrutiny over the origins – or chain of ownership – of their art, particularly those looted from conflict zones or illegally looted from archaeological sites. There is an increasing demand for such items to be returned to their countries of origin.
Donna Yates, a criminologist specializing in smuggling artifacts Maastricht University, said that several recent scandals involving looted artifacts – such as the Denver Art Museum’s return of Cambodian antiquities – “are prompting museums to rethink the ownership history of some of the objects they hold.”
“They really can’t stand the public embarrassment of being constantly attached to this sort of thing, because museums aren’t rich and many of them have a place of trust,” she said.
Besides the Heliodorus Stele and two ancient masks, at least one other Steinhardt-owned artifact in the Israel Museum is of uncertain origin: a 2,800-year-old inscription on black volcanic stone. The museum’s exhibits refer to the origins as Moab, an ancient kingdom in modern-day Jordan.
How it reached Jerusalem is not clear.
Steinhardt gave royal moab inscription said Amir Ganor, who heads the theft prevention unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, shortly after purchasing it from a licensed Israel dealer in Jerusalem, for the museum on an extended loan in 2002.
The dealer, who confirmed the deal but spoke on condition of anonymity due to legal questions surrounding the item, told The Associated Press that he received an inscription from a Palestinian ally in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Received, which did not specify its origin.
“I don’t know how it got to the dealer in Jerusalem,” Ganor said. He said it could have come through the West Bank, neighboring Jordan or Dubai, which has long been a center of antiquity.
The Israel Museum declined requests for interviews and declined to show documentation of the artifacts.
But in a statement, it denied wrongdoing, saying “the work consistently adheres to the rules in force at the time of borrowing.” It said all exhibits are “in full cooperation” with the Antiquities Authority.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said the Moabite inscription was not part of the Steinhardt investigation and declined to discuss it.
James Snyder, who was director of the Israel Museum from 1997 to 2016, said that all artifacts in the museum are checked for provenance by the IAA before they are displayed, and that Steinhardt’s other looted artifacts are “legally owned”. came with documentation of
“We were given legal purchase documents, approved to come on loan, and approved to return it,” Snyder said.
Israel has a market for legal antiquities run by approximately 55 licensed dealers. They are allowed to sell items discovered before 1978, when a law made all new artifacts the property of the state.
This market has provided an outlet for the smuggling and laundering of looted antiquities from around the Middle East given documents fabricated by dealers in Israel. Israel began plugging that loophole in 2016, when it mandated a digital database of dealers’ artifacts.
Israel recently returned smuggled antiquities found in dealers’ stores to Egypt and Libya. Other antiquities stolen from Iraq and Syria – including thousands of cuneiform tablets purchased in 2010 by Hobby Lobby owner Steve Green – were smuggled to Israeli dealers before being sold to collectors with fraudulent documents.
Morag Kersall, professor of archeology at DePaul University in Illinois, said the rampant looting of archaeological sites in the Middle East is ultimately “driven by all the demand.”
“The robbers do this because there is someone like Steinhardt who is willing to pay money and buy things that come straight off the ground,” she said.
Under the deal, the Manhattan District Attorney confiscated 180 of Steinhardt’s artifacts and would repatriate them to their respective countries. Steinhardt also agreed to impose a lifetime ban on obtaining antiquities – although it is unclear how that ban would be enforced.
Steinhardt, 81, is a longtime patron of the Israel Museum and several other Israeli institutions, including a natural history museum at Tel Aviv University named after him. Since 2001, his family foundation has donated more than $6.6 million to the Israel Museum, according to a partial US tax filing,
Steinhardt himself was not charged with plundering anything and said he had committed no crime. But the DA’s office said it “knew, or should have found out by proper investigation” that the antiquities had been stolen.
Steinhardt declined an interview request. His office issued a brief statement stating that the Manhattan DA did not “challenge Mr. Steinhardt’s rights, title, or interest in any of the artifacts” other than the settlement.
The DA began investigating Steinhardt’s vast antiquities collection in 2017 after he loaned a statue of a bull’s head Metropolitan Museum of Art which was plundered from a site in Lebanon.
The DA says there are three items in the Israel Museum”effectively seized in place, and have started talks with Israel to coordinate the return of 28 additional items. It said that Steinhardt “has been unable to locate the last nine objects for Israel”.
According to court documents, more than half of those 40 artifacts are believed to have been looted from West Bank sites. An additional nine artifacts from Jordan, many of which were sold to Steinhardt through Israel’s licensed antiquities market, are also being repatriated.
Neither the Jordanian government nor Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities Responded to requests for comment. Under interim peace deals in the mid-1990s, the fate of items taken from the occupied West Bank is yet to be part of the elusive peace agreement.
The Israel Museum said it recently learned of the agreement and is currently investigating the matter.
For now, the looted artifacts in the museum are still under Steinhardt’s name.
But shortly after it was displayed, an expert noticed something strange—two pieces of text found during excavations near Jerusalem a year earlier fit into a slab of limestone like a puzzle. It soon became clear that Steinhardt’s bullet came from the same cave where the other fragments were excavated.
Last month, Steinhardt surrendered the piece, known as the Heliodorus Stele, and 179 other artifacts worth nearly $70 million as part of a landmark deal with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to avoid prosecution. Eight Neolithic masks lent to the Israel Museum by Steinhardt for a major exhibition in 2014 were also confiscated under the deal, two of which are on display at the museum.
Museums around the world are facing greater scrutiny over the origins – or chain of ownership – of their art, particularly those looted from conflict zones or illegally looted from archaeological sites. There is an increasing demand for such items to be returned to their countries of origin.
Donna Yates, a criminologist specializing in smuggling artifacts Maastricht University, said that several recent scandals involving looted artifacts – such as the Denver Art Museum’s return of Cambodian antiquities – “are prompting museums to rethink the ownership history of some of the objects they hold.”
“They really can’t stand the public embarrassment of being constantly attached to this sort of thing, because museums aren’t rich and many of them have a place of trust,” she said.
Besides the Heliodorus Stele and two ancient masks, at least one other Steinhardt-owned artifact in the Israel Museum is of uncertain origin: a 2,800-year-old inscription on black volcanic stone. The museum’s exhibits refer to the origins as Moab, an ancient kingdom in modern-day Jordan.
How it reached Jerusalem is not clear.
Steinhardt gave royal moab inscription said Amir Ganor, who heads the theft prevention unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, shortly after purchasing it from a licensed Israel dealer in Jerusalem, for the museum on an extended loan in 2002.
The dealer, who confirmed the deal but spoke on condition of anonymity due to legal questions surrounding the item, told The Associated Press that he received an inscription from a Palestinian ally in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Received, which did not specify its origin.
“I don’t know how it got to the dealer in Jerusalem,” Ganor said. He said it could have come through the West Bank, neighboring Jordan or Dubai, which has long been a center of antiquity.
The Israel Museum declined requests for interviews and declined to show documentation of the artifacts.
But in a statement, it denied wrongdoing, saying “the work consistently adheres to the rules in force at the time of borrowing.” It said all exhibits are “in full cooperation” with the Antiquities Authority.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said the Moabite inscription was not part of the Steinhardt investigation and declined to discuss it.
James Snyder, who was director of the Israel Museum from 1997 to 2016, said that all artifacts in the museum are checked for provenance by the IAA before they are displayed, and that Steinhardt’s other looted artifacts are “legally owned”. came with documentation of
“We were given legal purchase documents, approved to come on loan, and approved to return it,” Snyder said.
Israel has a market for legal antiquities run by approximately 55 licensed dealers. They are allowed to sell items discovered before 1978, when a law made all new artifacts the property of the state.
This market has provided an outlet for the smuggling and laundering of looted antiquities from around the Middle East given documents fabricated by dealers in Israel. Israel began plugging that loophole in 2016, when it mandated a digital database of dealers’ artifacts.
Israel recently returned smuggled antiquities found in dealers’ stores to Egypt and Libya. Other antiquities stolen from Iraq and Syria – including thousands of cuneiform tablets purchased in 2010 by Hobby Lobby owner Steve Green – were smuggled to Israeli dealers before being sold to collectors with fraudulent documents.
Morag Kersall, professor of archeology at DePaul University in Illinois, said the rampant looting of archaeological sites in the Middle East is ultimately “driven by all the demand.”
“The robbers do this because there is someone like Steinhardt who is willing to pay money and buy things that come straight off the ground,” she said.
Under the deal, the Manhattan District Attorney confiscated 180 of Steinhardt’s artifacts and would repatriate them to their respective countries. Steinhardt also agreed to impose a lifetime ban on obtaining antiquities – although it is unclear how that ban would be enforced.
Steinhardt, 81, is a longtime patron of the Israel Museum and several other Israeli institutions, including a natural history museum at Tel Aviv University named after him. Since 2001, his family foundation has donated more than $6.6 million to the Israel Museum, according to a partial US tax filing,
Steinhardt himself was not charged with plundering anything and said he had committed no crime. But the DA’s office said it “knew, or should have found out by proper investigation” that the antiquities had been stolen.
Steinhardt declined an interview request. His office issued a brief statement stating that the Manhattan DA did not “challenge Mr. Steinhardt’s rights, title, or interest in any of the artifacts” other than the settlement.
The DA began investigating Steinhardt’s vast antiquities collection in 2017 after he loaned a statue of a bull’s head Metropolitan Museum of Art which was plundered from a site in Lebanon.
The DA says there are three items in the Israel Museum”effectively seized in place, and have started talks with Israel to coordinate the return of 28 additional items. It said that Steinhardt “has been unable to locate the last nine objects for Israel”.
According to court documents, more than half of those 40 artifacts are believed to have been looted from West Bank sites. An additional nine artifacts from Jordan, many of which were sold to Steinhardt through Israel’s licensed antiquities market, are also being repatriated.
Neither the Jordanian government nor Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities Responded to requests for comment. Under interim peace deals in the mid-1990s, the fate of items taken from the occupied West Bank is yet to be part of the elusive peace agreement.
The Israel Museum said it recently learned of the agreement and is currently investigating the matter.
For now, the looted artifacts in the museum are still under Steinhardt’s name.
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