Making Sense of Collection Histories: Cultural Heritage in Context

The late nineteenth to early twentieth century saw an explosion of the antiquities market in the Mediterranean and Eastern Mediterranean region – closely tied to the disintegrating Ottoman Empire and the rise of European colonisation of the Middle East. The fragile situation allowed for an increase in demand for and acquisition of ancient material throughout Europe. This period also marked the rise of systematic looting, grey zones in collection practices and forgery practices, the effects of which continue to shape the field today. By examining the limitations of former and current international legal frameworks for the protection of cultural heritage, this colloquium will explore the challenges researchers face in addressing the illicit trafficking of antiquities, particularly those displaced during periods of conflict. It takes it point of departure in the work done within the Palmyra Portrait Project since 2012.

Join the Center for Art Law for a conversation with Dr. Rubina Raja, Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Aarhus University, as she presents contemporary, collaborative approaches to combating the illicit trade in antiquities, with a particular focus on Palmyra (Tadmor), Syria.

Drawing on the historical relationship between collecting and looting, the discussion will highlight the Palmyrene Portrait Project, a corpus of over 4,000 funerary portraits from Palmyra compiled by Dr. Raja and her team since 2012. The project serves as a critical record of material that, in many cases, remained in situ prior to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War. Before its inception, this body of material had not been treated as a unified corpus, nor systematically digitized. Today, the project stands as both the largest corpus of individual Roman period portraits from a single urban context and an essential scholarly and practical tool for identifying objects from Palmyra as they emerge on the art market.