Are Museums Lying About Their Antiquities?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lara Ayad (00:09):
Hello everyone, welcome to the Cheeky Scholar.
This is the podcast where smartand cheeky scholars share their
knowledge about history, artand culture and bust a whole lot
of myths along the way.
I'm your host, dr Lara Ayad.
If you're new to the show,thanks for joining us today and

(00:31):
if you've listened before,welcome back.
Okay.
Well, I am very excited to haveElizabeth Marlowe on the show,
on the Cheeky Scholar podcastshow on the Cheeky Scholar
podcast.
And before we get into ourconversation talking about
antiquities, museums, ancientRoman pop culture, before I

(00:51):
introduce you and get into yourbio, what is the worst ice cream
flavor that you could everconcoct for your worst enemy?
I've been sort of pullingdifferent ideas from my guests
and seeing we've already got afew things on the menu Smoked
salmon, blueberry and sardines.
What's something reallyterrible that you could come up

(01:12):
with?

Elizabeth Marlowe (01:14):
I think that the contribution I can make to
that list is the one vegetableI've never outgrown my distaste
for, and that would be Brusselssprouts.
So the idea of Brussels sproutice and that would be Brussels
sprouts.
So the idea of, yeah, brusselssprout ice cream just would be
torture to me.

Lara Ayad (01:30):
That would be torture .
That would be torture.
Yeah, you'd give it to somebody, you'd like excite them about
it and then give it to them andbe like this is matcha ice cream
, but actually it's Brusselssprout ice cream.

That would be cruel.

Lara Ayad (01:42):
Yeah, yeah, that would be cruel.
But before we get into that, Iwanted to just introduce
Elizabeth Marlowe to the show.
So Elizabeth Marlowe is chairof the Department of Art at
Colgate University in Hamilton,new York.

(02:02):
She's also professor of arthistory and director of the
Museum Studies Program atColgate University in Hamilton,
new York.
She's also professor of arthistory and director of the
museum studies program atColgate, and Liz loves going to
museums, hanging out with herkids and taking walks with her
recently adopted puppy.
So I understand that yourecently adopted a puppy.

Yes, very adorable little Bernadoodle.
So a cross between a poodle anda Bernice mountain dog oh my
god, that sounds amazing.

Lara Ayad (02:30):
You know, I had to look up pictures of what a
Bernadoodle was when you told meabout it and I was like it
looks like a little teddy bear,it's like it's the cutest thing
in the world insanely acute andwe got it from a rescue.

So, like, able to do like the virtuous
thing, but also adore like, yeah, have this thing that really
does look like a teddy bear.

Lara Ayad (02:49):
Oh my God.
Well, I'm looking forward toseeing pictures of this little
puppy.
Did you, did you give it a name?

Banjo.

Lara Ayad (02:56):
Banjo that's such a great name for a dog.

She walks around and she's like like all,
oh my God.

Lara Ayad (03:03):
Oh my God, that's so great.
Well, we've got a lot of doglovers on the show, because the
first guest I brought on is alsolike she.
She actually does like this,this thing where she fosters
dogs that are going to beadopted out and she's been doing
it for years.
So we've got tons of dog loverson the show, so yeah, so I'm
really looking forward to seeingpictures of Banjo.

I'm full of admiration for people who can do
that.
I feel like I would just get soattached.
I would end up like justkeeping all the dogs.

Lara Ayad (03:29):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does happen
occasionally.
It does happen occasionally,but okay.
So we're going to talk aboutreally cool things, but maybe
less cuddly and cute.
So, liz, you've written anumber of books and articles
about ancient Roman art,including how museums have
handled Roman antiquities insome rather unsavory ways, and

(03:49):
I'll put a few of your writtenpieces in the show notes so that
people could go check them out.
I'll include links, you know ifit's on Amazon.
But I wanted to start off ourconversation talking about one
particular article that youwrote back in 2022 for the art
magazine Hyperallergic, and Ilove the title of this.

(04:10):
It's called when Will MuseumsTell the Whole Truth About their
Antiquities.
So can you tell us what are youarguing in this article and
what motivated you to write itto begin with?

Yeah, and what motivated you to write it
to begin with?
Yeah, so what I was interestedin was this bind that museums
are in.
You know, museums are oftenvague in their labels about
where their pieces came from,and that can be sometimes for
innocent reasons.
Sometimes they genuinely don'tknow, because the person they

(04:47):
acquired it from didn't know andthey decided it was worth
acquiring anyway, even thoughthey didn't have that key
information.
But sometimes they do know andthey just don't reveal it in
their labels because if theywere to identify the country
that the object came from, thatopens the door for that country

(05:08):
to ask for it back if thatcountry has any reason to think
that the piece was looted.

Lara Ayad (05:14):
Right, because apparently what a lot of some
people don't know that you can'tjust take antiquities or art
from another country withoutactually being legally
authorized to do so.
Is that right?

Right, yeah, a lot of countries.
In fact most countries have oneform of national ownership law
or another.
These can take many differentforms, but basically most
countries say that objects ofimportant cultural patrimony
belong to the nation and theycan't be exported without

(05:45):
getting permission from thegovernment to do that.
And the government very rarelysays yes to that.
So most of the time if there'san important ancient artifact
that shows up on the market, ifit doesn't have proof that it
was legally exported, if itdoesn't have that kind of
government document, it's a safeassumption that it was looted,

(06:08):
right that as in illegallyexported from that country.

Lara Ayad (06:13):
Right, and how many museums?
Sorry, so how many museums have?
I mean, do a lot of museumshave a lot of looted artworks in
them?
Because you could go to theMetropolitan Museum of Art, you
can go to the Cleveland Museum Imean you see antiquities or the
Walters Art Museum in Maryland.
How much of this was broughtover legally and how much of it
was not?
I mean the tricky question.

I mean the short answer to your question is
yes, all museums have hugenumbers of looted objects, have
huge numbers of looted objects.
Where it gets more complicatedthan that is that we only
consider objects to be looted ifwe know that they left their
country of origin after thatcountry passed its national

(06:59):
ownership laws.
So that means we have to havetwo pieces of information we
have to know which specificcountry it came from and we have
to know the date when it leftthat country, right?
If we don't know one of thosetwo, if we don't know both of
those things, there's no way tosay whether a piece is looted or
not.

(07:32):
So so it's it's a very gray arearight.

Lara Ayad (07:33):
It's not a question of you know.
Like you know, it's not a blackand white question.
It's a question that is afunction of how much we know
about the piece.
That's just incredible so.

So when you wrote this article for hyper
allergic, was there a particularmuseum that you had in mind or
that kind of triggered you towrite this?
So the interesting thing and letme take one step back the thing
that makes this reallycomplicated, especially if you
work on artworks from the Romanperiod, which is my area of
expertise the problem with theRoman Empire and I think about
it every day the problem withthe Roman Empire is that it

(08:04):
encompasses more than 40 moderncountries.
So if you have a portrait statueof a Roman, there's no way to
know just from looking at itwhich of those 40 countries it
came from.
So if a museum is acquiring itand nobody said, oh, this came
from Tunisia, this came fromSwitzerland, this came from

(08:29):
Turkey, if nobody tells themwhich country it came from, it's
fine for the museum to acquireit, even if it has no paperwork
whatsoever.
So it was clearly illegallyexported from somewhere.
But if we don't know where itwas illegally exported from,
then there's no identifiablevictim and the museum will keep

(08:52):
it until somebody comes alongand says oh, look at this, I
have a photograph of that exactstatue in Italy in 1952 or you
know so so sometimes with withsubsequent information we can
prove that a piece is looted.
But most of the pieces thatsurface on the art market don't

(09:14):
have a known fine spot rightbecause that information has
been carefully suppressed sothat it can be bought and sold.

Lara Ayad (09:24):
And a fine spot is essentially a place where the
antiquity was actuallyoriginally found, not where it
moved to, not a collector'scollection, not a museum, not,
yeah Right right.

So I was really interested in this kind
of epistemological question,right?
A question that gets to do thathas to do with how we
knowistemological question,right, a question that has to do
with how we know what we know,right?
What kind of evidence do we useto understand things about the
past?
So the information about wherean ancient object came from is

(09:59):
an essential data point for ourunderstanding of what a piece is
.
So what I was really focusingon in that article I chose as
just a useful case study forthis question there was a group
of bronze life-size nude statuesof men, right so like life-size

(10:26):
naked men in bronze um theresounds like the name of like a
really bad gentleman's club orsomething.
Yes, or a lady's club, howeveryou want to put it, most of
which were missing their headstoo, which so oh my goodness,
life-size without their headsyes, yes, uh.
So a whole trove of these werefound by accident in a remote

(10:54):
village that had been the siteof a small town in during the
time of the ancient roman empire.
These were found in this smallvillage in southern Turkey,
southwestern Turkey, at a sitecalled Bubon in the 1960s and
there was a huge number of them,like at least a dozen.

(11:17):
We actually don't know how many,because they were found one at
a time and they were secretedout of the village and then sold
to a middleman, who sold themto a middleman and eventually
they all surface on the artmarket.
Bronzes are extremely rarelife-size bronzes from the
ancient world, but this wholegroup of them show up on the

(11:41):
market more or less all at thesame time, more or less all the
same size.
They all have kind of the samestylistic characteristics and a
Turkish archaeologist likewithin a decade of this
happening, a Turkisharchaeologist has kind of
uncovered the whole story.
She's spoken to the originallooters, she's re -excavated the

(12:03):
site where these were comingout of the ground, she found the
pedestals that the statues wereoriginally on, and she
publishes it in a couple ofdifferent scholarly articles.

Lara Ayad (12:12):
And that's Jale Inan.
I think that's how youpronounce her name.

Right.

Lara Ayad (12:17):
She was kind of an early whistleblower, a
whistleblower in this wholeprocess, right.

Absolutely, and she is like a total hero of
mine.
She was an amazing person.
I really wish I could have mether.
She was the first woman to holda professorship in archaeology
in Turkey.
She studied in Germany.
She's studying while bombs werefalling.
Her biography is an amazingstory, that's incredible.

(12:42):
Yeah.
So she uncovers this wholestory, she publishes it in
scholarly journals.
So scholars are aware of all ofthis.
But meanwhile these bronzes arecirculating on the art market.
Like you know, there's nosmoking gun.

(13:05):
There were no pictures thatwere taken at the time when the
pieces were coming out of theground that would allow us to
definitively tie these pieces onthe market to this act of
looting.
But the circumstantial evidenceis overwhelmingly in favor of
the fact that this group musthave come from this site, mainly

(13:28):
because it would be so like itwould be such an extraordinary
coincidence to have this likeknown episode, where a bunch of
sculptures of this type werefound and then a bunch of
sculptures of this type and haveit not be matching right, so,
anyway.
So everybody in the fieldbasically knows that this group

(13:48):
of statues came from this site.
Many of the statues have foundtheir way into American museums.
What I was really interested inis what these American museums
are saying about these statuesin their labels.
Are they acknowledging thatthis was part of a large group

(14:13):
of other statues that are now inmuseums all over the place,
that they were found at a shrine, at a religious sanctuary where
the Roman emperors wereworshipped as gods?
Are they acknowledging that thewhole reason we know that this
headless, naked man is an imageof a Roman emperor.
Are they acknowledging that?
We know that because of thefine spot, right?

(14:33):
Because it was found at ashrine for the worship of the
Roman emperors?
Are they acknowledging that itcomes from the city of Bubon,
right?
So what I was really interestedin was how much of this
historical information?

Lara Ayad (14:51):
are they giving in their labels, right, and how
much are they not giving?
And how much are they notgiving?

Yes, right, if they say they know this is a
Roman emperor, do they explainhow they know that?
So these are the kinds ofquestions I was interested in.
They know that you know.
So these are the kinds ofquestions I was interested in.
So, starting in the 20-teens, Iwas slowly making my way around
all the US museums that hadthese pieces on display and

(15:17):
taking pictures of the gallerylabels just to see, like, how do
they talk about this?
Right, all these museums havethe same problem because these
pieces all came from the samecorpus, but you can use it as a
kind of litmus test to get asense, like, how committed to
the truth are these variousinstitutions?
How much are they giving awayin the label?

(15:38):
How much are they pretendingnot to know?
Article that came out inHyperallergic in 2022.
And, spoiler alert, I will sayall the you know the museums
were all being extremely cagey.
They were all kind ofpretending that they were able

(15:59):
to identify these pieces asRoman emperors just based on
their, like, deep knowledge ofthe style, and they would say
things like you know, the styleis consistent with the kind of
sculptures that were found inSouthern Turkey, you know what
it's like?
No, no, no, you know thatbecause you know the fine spot
because of the looting that waspublished, right, but they were

(16:21):
never, they were never admittingit, right.

Lara Ayad (16:23):
They were just sort of pretending that this was
information that they haddeduced using their
connoisseurship and expertisejust kind of like give us

(16:46):
information on a label becausethat's the truth, right, and
what you're showing us, Liz, isthat actually museums are not
being so honest with us or verytransparent with audiences and
visitors about where exactlypieces come from.
And it also kind of we can getinto this a little bit later
about like perceptions ofancient Rome, but it also kind
of masks over the fact thatancient Rome spans over many

(17:07):
parts of what's now like theMiddle East and parts of Asia
and parts of Africa and parts ofEurope.
That it was a very likemulti-ethnic, multicultural,
massive empire, right.

Yes, yeah, all of all of that is true, all
of that is true.

Lara Ayad (17:22):
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Lara Ayad (17:23):
So you, so you can't.
You were taking pictures ofthese labels, kind of sleuthing
your way through museums.
What was, I meann, whathappened afte you published this
article and kind of sharedsome of your findings and saying
you know something isn't righthere.

Like you know , my contribution to scholarship
is just this question of howyou know how the museums are
writing the labels.
But the story of the looting,you know that was not my
original research.
That had all been done in the1970s by this Turkish
archaeologist.
She's really the one who putthe whole story together.
What I hadn't quite thoughtthrough was that this article

(18:09):
that I published inHyperallergic was the first time
that the story of the lootingat Bubon had been told in the
digital age and had been told ina format that was open access,
and I included hyperlinks to allthe museums where the pieces

(18:30):
are on display now, so thatinformation was available, you
know, to people who are readingthrough scholarly journals right
, and people have access to,like interlibrary loan and
people who can read German, youknow.
But in fact, there had been alot of barriers to, you know, to
a wider audience for this story, whereas my hyperallergic

(18:54):
article was making the storyavailable for the first time to
a much wider audience.
Suddenly a lot of people werepaying attention to Bubon,
including cultural officials inTurkey who had expressed some
interest in some of the piecesfrom Bubon in 2012, when there

(19:19):
was a moment of kind of anaggressive push for repatriation
for some high profile pieces.
But this article kind of, Ithink, got them interested in
the looting at Bubon as a wholeand they expressed their desire
to have all of those piecesrepatriated.
And it was coming at a momentwhen there was a very proactive

(19:42):
Manhattan District Attorney whois still the Assistant District
Attorney, matthew Bogdanos,who's still very much committed
to pursuing these kinds of cases.
So the stars aligned and thisarticle had this consequence
that, yeah, very activeinvestigation was undertaken and

(20:03):
since I've published it a wholenumber of those pieces have
gone back to Turkey.
Now Many of them are back inTurkey.

Lara Ayad (20:11):
That's incredible.
I mean, it's like it's likeyou're, you're kind of you're
sleuthing.
Work as a scholar hasessentially helped to get some
of this what's sometimes calledcultural heritage or cultural
patrimony back to the country oforigin.
And you know it's.
It's interesting because whenyou're describing this, liz, it
sounds like you know all those.
Those 12 or dozen or so bronzestatues went on the market

(20:34):
almost at the same time.
It's coming from bubon, turkey.
You're talking about peopledigging things up or looting,
people sort of acting as themiddlemen, if I understood
correct, and then you have a lotof like collectors and
different individuals, or evensometimes, institutions and
museums who get their hands onthese artworks.
This sounds like a hugeinternational operation.

(20:56):
I mean, how big exactly is thisillegal or illicit trade in
antiquities?
Not just I mean, I'm sure it'snot just coming from Rome, I
know they're even fromantiquities coming from Mali and
West Africa, antiquities comingfrom many different parts of
the world that have beencirculating for decades now.
So how big is this?

Yes, there's two parts to your question that
I would untangle.
I think one question is howmuch looting is still going on
today and how many pieces arestill circulating on the market
today that were looted maybe 10or 20 or 30 years ago, that are

(21:36):
still considered the culturalproperty of those countries?
Right 10, 20, 30, 40 years agois still after those countries
passed their own culturalpatrimony laws.
I think I don't know, andscholars don't know.
It's an interesting questionwhether the shift in public

(21:58):
opinion and the fact thatmuseums today are exercising
more caution around acquiringpieces that don't have good
paperwork, good documentationthat they were exported legally
from their country of origin,Museums are much more cautious
about acquiring those today.
Is that having a trickle-downeffect?
Does that mean that collectorsare less willing to pay?

Lara Ayad (22:22):
for them.

I saw that little slip there, yeah, and has
the memo reached the looters inthe source countries?
Have they been told like, hey,you're not there, there isn't
much of a market for theseanymore?
Has the looting actually beenreduced as a result of these
various measures?
I think that's still an openquestion.
What is clearly the case,though, is that people have not

(22:48):
stopped buying objects thatdon't have.
That you know that we can onlytrace back to like 1995.
West 57th Street or on MadisonAvenue, there's still many, many
, many pieces for sale wherethere isn't clear proof of legal

(23:13):
exportation from the country oforigin.
All there is is documentationthat says, like this came from a
private collector who bought itin 1987 or whatever.
So and that's all you know,that's all.
Those are all considered lootedantiquities If they don't have
proof of legal exportation.
They are, they're consideredlooted and they shouldn't be

(23:36):
bought or sold.
There was just an article inthe newspaper this morning in
the New York Times, yeah, yeah.
About someone who you know wasacquiring pieces and somehow,
like didn't realize that thething she needed to be asking
about was proof of legalexportation from the country of
origin.

Lara Ayad (23:57):
So it sounds like it's interesting because you're
talking about public opinion,about the you know, antiquities
being in museums and should theybe sent back to their countries
of origin?
You know, and it seems like alot of people generally say yeah
, and should they be sent backto their countries of origin?
You know, and it seems like alot of people generally say yeah
, they should.
I mean, if they're from thatcountry, they should go back.
I've heard conflicting opinions, but what's so interesting

(24:18):
about this is the tensionbetween that general public
perception and the fact that somany people are still kind of
collecting antiquities and arenot even aware that they should
be asking questions about hey,was this even legally coming
from the country?
What do you make of thatconflict or that tension?

I mean, it's real.
I do have sympathy for peoplewho were taught to think about
antiquities in one way and thenthe paradigm shifted and now we
think about them in a differentway.
But these, you know, theopinion doesn't change overnight
, right?
We're asking people tofundamentally reconceptualize

(25:04):
how they understand an ancientartifact.
So they may have grown up orgone to school or been taught to
look at an ancient artifact, tosee it as a beautiful object,
to understand it as the heritageof humankind, to believe that
the most important thing theycan do is to help it get out of
the ground and onto a displayshelf somewhere where people can

(25:27):
see it.
You know, that's a veryunderstandable perspective.
But in the last couple ofdecades we've been taught other
ways of thinking aboutantiquities.
We've been taught to understandthat without the context,
without the knowledge of wherethey came out of the ground,

(25:49):
really all we can say is howlovely it is, right, we can
admire its beautiful forms, butany information that it might
have been able to give us aboutthe ancient world, anything new
it might have been able to teachus, based on where it was found
and what else it was buriedwith, right, All of that is
essential for understanding howthe object was actually used in

(26:12):
the ancient world, and if wedon't have that information,
that is a terrible loss.
So when objects are poorlyexcavated, right as in taken out
of the ground without anybodycarefully documenting the whole
circumstances of the fine spot,when that happens, that's bad,

(26:33):
Right and that's anarchaeologist and, as you're a
specialist in this archaeologist, that's what they do.

Lara Ayad (26:39):
They kind of have a almost a scientific system for
excavating, whether it's piecesof artworks or architecture,
whatever.
One of the main methods theyuse, for instance, to date
whatever it is they find is tolook for shards of pottery that
are found in that same layer ofdirt or that same strata, as
they call it, and they use thatto help date.

(26:59):
And if we don't know the dateof when something was made,
that's taking a huge chunk outof what we can know about
original cultural context, likewho are the people that made
these?
Why?
Why did they even make it tobegin with?
How did they use it?
What was its significance intheir daily lives?
Um, and what you're saying, liz, is that when these, these
don't get properly excavated orthey're looted, we lose that

(27:22):
information forever.
I mean, can that ever bereconstructed?
Is there any way to get thatback?

Almost never.
It's very difficult to like youknow, later on some piece of
information comes out.
There's a wonderful example,but it's famous because it's so
rare.
There was the top half of astatue of Hercules that surfaced
on the art market.
That was acquired by prominentcollectors, that ended up going

(27:48):
to the Museum of Fine ArtsBoston, and then a couple of
years later, the bottom half ofthe statue came out of the
ground in an archaeologicalexcavation.

Lara Ayad (27:59):
Was it like on the other side of the planet, like
what dude kind of loses half ofhis body?

Yeah, I mean basically like looters found it
first and then archaeologistswent back to the site and found
the rest of it, right?
So that's a rare example where,you know, this beautiful statue
of Hercules was eventuallyreassociated with the place in
the ground that it was from, butthat happens extremely rarely,
as you can imagine.
I want to say, though, just togo back to your point, right, so

(28:27):
, you know, so far we've beentalking about kind of two ways
of thinking about antiquities.
You can understand them asbeautiful ancient objects and
the heritage of humankind, andthat can point you in one
direction and lead to one kindof well-intentioned behaviors.
You can think about them asarchaeological artifacts, where

(28:48):
they're meaningless unless wehave all this contextual
information.
But there's lots of other waysof understanding them as well.
Right, that makes this a reallycomplicated landscape to
navigate, right, there are thesesource countries that say this
is national patrimony, and eventhat is sort of a complicated

(29:10):
that.
You know, that requires a wholebunch of like complicated ideas
that not everybody is going toagree with, right, turkey wasn't
Turkey 2000 years ago.
So we might say yeah, yeah, yeah, there's, you know, there's
people who argue that.
You know, that kind ofnationalist mindset does not do

(29:31):
justice to the complexity of thehistorical record, to the
history of human migration overtime.
Right, there's lots of ways inwhich we can argue about that
paradigm.
And then there's even more waysof thinking about these things.
Right, we can also think aboutthe very local community, right,
say, the farmers who have livedon a plot of land for

(29:54):
generations and periodicallytheir plow turns over some
little treasure, right, andmaybe in their house they have
like a whole bookshelf full ofthings that have come out of the
ground in their fields over thecourse of generations.
Right, a tie to the past thatthey have developed over
centuries, finding thesearchaeological artifacts which,

(30:31):
technically, they should beturning over to the Italian
state, right, because this isnational patrimony.
So, all of which is to saythere's the art paradigm,
there's the archaeology paradigm, there's the national paradigm,
there's the small community,farmer, you know, attachment to
the soil paradigm, and these areall in conflict with each other

(30:55):
, right?
So it's.
It's kind of no wonder that weare in this place today where
all of these competingunderstandings of antiquity are
clashing up against each otherright, there's also the
antiquities as investment whichis a whole other dimension of my
research right.

Lara Ayad (31:13):
Yes, yeah.
So this is amazing because andwe're going to get into that in
a minute, cause cause thisarticle you wrote for hyper
allergic wasn't the first timeyou were a whistleblower, so
we'll get into the otherinstances where you kind of like
did a you know, a big kind ofalmost a scandalous expose on
things going on with ancient artand the circulation of

(31:33):
antiquities.
But it's interesting becauseyou have these different
paradigms or these kinds of like.
I mean, if I could describe itanother way a sort of a story, a
meaning making story aboutantiquities and there's so many
different perspectives you cantake.
And I am fascinated by thislocalized perspective where
you're looking at, like,antiquities as being part of the

(31:54):
earth and the land and thenwhoever is finding them and
lives on that land and has beenthere for a while is forming
this relationship with theseantiquities.
That maybe doesn't fall undernationalist paradigms, doesn't
fall also under this idea thatantiquities are part of a
universal culture, a universallanguage, which you know I have

(32:17):
some mixed feelings about thekind of idea of, like a
universal human language to anextent that I mean, europe
didn't exist 2000 years ago,there was no concept of Europe,
so we can get into that withdefinitions of Western
civilization in a minute,because I think you can speak to
that very well.
So I just wanted to share thatthat.

(32:38):
I think that's so interesting.
Ancient Egypt is a perfectexample, too, of a kind of like
place and popular culture wherepeople who are not Egyptian at
all and have no ancestry fromthat part of the world think
that this is like part of theirkind of cultural heritage.
And as a modern Egyptian, youknow, and the kid of immigrants

(33:02):
from Egypt, I kind of have someissues with that.
It's like hello, still here, westill exist, we have a cultural
patrimony, but of course, likeas you said, liz, there's so
many other complicated sort ofum things at play and like who
should benefit from accessingand knowing about these
antiquities.
I mean, I think that's reallysuch a key question, um.

(33:24):
So I just thought I would sharethat because I think you're,
you're, what you're bringing uphere is just kind of.
I think it just kind of showsthat there's not really always
an easy way to identify the badguy and the victim and the hero
right, like sometimes thosecategories can get a little bit
muddled.
So I wanted to to get toanother instance where you were

(33:47):
whistleblowing.
I think this is another great,a great um example.
So you have found out someinformation about a famous or
infamous antiquities dealer innew york named jerome eisenberg.
What have you found abouteisenberg?
What did he do?

yeah, so I should say um, so I haven't
blown this whistle yet.
In fact, this might be one ofthe first times I'm no, it's not
.
It's not the first time I'mtelling this story publicly.
I've given it in a couple ofpublic talks but as a I'm still
working on it as a publicationand still trying to figure out
what form that publicationshould take is one of the most

(34:25):
prominent was one of the mostprominent, best known
antiquities dealers in the US.
He was certainly one of the mostprolific and long lived.
He liked to tell a lot ofstories about himself, one of
which is that he began dealingantiquities at the age of 12

(34:45):
because he made a littlenewsletter about Roman coins and
you know, he was like a coincollector and he was buying and
selling them already at the ageof 12.
And then he opens a gallerycalled Royal Athena Gallery and
it was in operation for, I wantto say, like 70 years.
No, maybe he was dealingantiquities for 70 years.

(35:06):
Maybe Royal Athena was only inopen for business for 60 years
or something.

Lara Ayad (35:10):
But it was extraordinary.
When did this take place?
Was thiss through the earlyyears of the 21st?

century, I mean really for like 50 years.

(35:38):
The second half of the 20thcentury, we can say, was all
like the Eisenberg era, where hewas extremely prominent in the
field and, you know, among thecollecting community he was a
prominent and influential figure.
The part of his history that Iam really interested in and this

(36:03):
is a little piece you know,this is a tiny sliver of his
overall practice as anantiquities dealer but one of
the things he did in the 1980swas that he set up a
collaboration, a partnership,with an insurance salesman in
Detroit who was in the suburbsof Detroit, actually a guy based

(36:24):
in Bloomfield Hills, and Iactually think it was the
insurance salesman who came toEisenberg and not the other way
around.
But at any rate they teamed upand this insurance salesman in
Detroit became a so-calledgallery agent for Eisenberg's
New York City gallery.

(36:44):
And what he was doing thisinsurance salesman was selling
antiquities out of Eisenberg'scatalogs, so the actual objects
were never seen, he was justshowing people the catalogs and
persuading his insurancecustomers to buy antiquities as

(37:04):
an investment.
This was started in themid-1980s, right, so when
everything is like go, go, go,art is an investment.
Tangibles are like this hotcategory and Eisenberg.
In his catalogs at the time andin fact throughout his career,
all the way up to what he wassaying on his websites at the

(37:27):
end of his life.
Eisenberg was talking aboutantiquities being an excellent
investment category thatroutinely yield 8% to 10%
returns.
That was a claim he was makingall the time.
He wasn't guaranteeing it right, but he was saying it is normal

(37:48):
for antiquities to yield eightto 10 percent returns.
And you know, it's sort offascinating to imagine.
You know these guys in Detroitbeing told about Eisenberg by
their insurance salesman.
Somebody that they've, you know, I think, formed a close
relationship with insurancesalesman.
Somebody that they've, you know, I think, formed a close

(38:09):
relationship with this personhas, like, sold them life
insurance.
So he's like, learnedeverything about their finances.
You know, really kind of aclose personal relationship that
they would develop.
But then he would you know atthe end of it he would say like,
and, by the way, I've got agreat opportunity for you.
I've got this connection tothis guy in New York and what
the investors told me because Iwas able to interview yeah, you

(38:32):
talked to some of theseinvestors.

Lara Ayad (38:33):
I mean, what were they like?
What did they tell you?

Yeah, well, you know they were telling me
what they were told at the time,which is that this guy in New
York you know they were tellingme this with great enthusiasm
he's a genius, he's a, a guru,he was the model for indiana
jones, a couple of them told me.
One of them told me he he wasthe discoverer of the dead sea
scrolls.
Wait what?

Lara Ayad (38:56):
did eisenberg wear correct?
Did eisenberg wear the hat like?
Was that why they were sayinghe was the model for indiana
jones?

yeah, no none of this, none of this of this,
but I do think it's interestingthat this whole investment
scheme got started in the mid80s, just a couple of years
after the Indiana Jones moviecame out, after Raiders of the
Lost Ark.
So I think the idea, you know,of like treasures coming out of
the ground from the ancientworld, I think was very much

(39:25):
part of the zeitgeist at themoment and this whole scheme
benefited from that.
So he would.
So these investors would buythese pieces, being told that
you know they should hold ontothem for around 10 years that's
how they would maximize theirreturns but that you know this
was a, this was a really goodinvestment and you know good

(39:46):
chance.
It was going to yield eight to10, 10%.
And then every year Eisenbergwould send them an appraisal
document, an updated appraisal,you know, sort of very fancy
looking certificate that I'veseen.
You know these investors showedme their documents telling them

(40:08):
the new value of the piece theybought last year.

Lara Ayad (40:12):
But they weren't like .
Eisenberg didn't sell the piece, he didn't actually know what
the new value is, quote, unquotebut he was just sending them
this document saying that he didknow.

Yeah, I mean it was.
It was a new appraisal based onnothing other than the fact
that a year had gone by.

Lara Ayad (40:30):
It's almost like a stock.
It's almost like Eisenberg wastreating the antiquities and
their monetary value is like theway that stocks sort of operate
, which is fascinating to me.
It's almost like he knew.
I mean, I know this is gettingvery psychological, but it's
almost like he kind of knew thatthese investors thought about
these material goods in that way.

Right, Very much so, and I mean, this is the
kind of tragic part of this.
He would send out this newappraisal and every year the
number was somewhere between 8%and 10% higher than it was the
year before.
Right, like what a coincidence,just what he was telling them.
But that increased value wasbased on no real information

(41:16):
whatsoever, right?
The Appraisers Association ofAmerica, of which he was a
member.
They have all kinds ofguidelines about, you know, that
govern what an appraisal has tobe based on, right?
You have to provide things likecomparables, right?
So he should have been able totell them well, a piece very
similar to yours sold atChristie's this year and it, you

(41:41):
know it, brought in this muchmoney.
Therefore, right now, I thinkyou're.
But he wasn't doing any of that.
He wasn't getting newphotographs of the pieces, he
wasn't coming out to inspect thepieces, he wasn't providing
comparables.
This document wasn't sayingwhat purpose the new appraisal
was being issued for.
He also was not promising thathe didn't have a financial stake

(42:07):
in the appraisal, which is alsosupposed to be part of the
process.
So he was sending them thisupdated document and, just as
you say, the investors werereading this like a quarterly
stock report.
I mean, they absolutelyunderstood this new document
that was coming to them everyyear telling them that their

(42:28):
piece was now worth 10% morethan it was worth last year.
They understood that to be anunequivocal, objective statement
of fact.

Lara Ayad (42:38):
Yeah.
So, let me ask you something.
So why is it?
Why was it such an issue thatEisenberg was doing this?
I mean beyond, mean beyond, ofcourse, the fact that he was not
being transparent with theinvestors.
He did not follow guidelinesthat were set by these
professional appraisalorganizations that were set out
for collectors, for people whosell or deal art.

(43:00):
But what's also some of thelarger, what are some of the
larger ramifications ofeisenberg having done something
like this?

yeah, so you can look at it from a number of
perspectives.
So just from the investor'sperspective, right, I mean the
sad awakening that they all got.
And all of the ones that Ispoke to told me that they were
quite unprepared for this whenit happened, when they were
ready to cash out, prepared forthis.

(43:30):
When it happened, when theywere ready to cash out, they
just thought they were going tosay, like, okay, we'd like our
money now, and that Eisenbergwould just give them the amount
of the last appraisal right,that he would just take the
object back and pay them theamount that he had told them was
its current value.
In fact, what he was willing todo was to take the piece back
on consignment and he waswilling to sell it right, to

(43:54):
list it in his catalogs and sellit in his shop at the price
which he had promised it was nowworth.
But then the investor had towait for it to sell at that
price and, given the fact thatthese actually were pretty
inflated prices because theantiquities really kind of

(44:15):
weren't going up in value bythat amount, in most cases the
pieces just sat there.
They just sat and sat and sat.
So that was the part of it thatwas like I think there was some
real lack of transparency andmaybe some yeah, some due

(44:37):
diligence.
That was not happening.
Some transparency that was nothappening.
The part of where the story goesreally south is that this all
started in 1985.
The investors who didn't getout within the first 15 years or
so encountered a set ofcircumstances which were quite

(44:59):
unexpected to everyone involved,which is that in the early
2000s, the whole antiquitiesmarket essentially collapsed as
a result of the scandals thatensued because of the trial at
the Getty and the whole episodethat's known as the Medici
conspiracy, where there was adealer who was convicted in

(45:23):
Italy and there were stories inthe New York Times.
This is the era when one of themost famous antiquities in the
Met's collection, a vase thatwas painted by an artist named
Euphronius, that was proven tohave been looted and that was
returned to Italy.
So there was this period in thefirst decade of the 2000s where

(45:45):
there were stories in theBoston Globe and the New York
Times and the LA Times and theNew Yorker I mean this was just
continuously in the news aroundlooted antiquities and all of
these pieces were beingrepatriated and it had a
tremendous impact on the marketand all of the pieces that these

(46:06):
investors had purchased andwhose value they thought had
gone up and up and up and up.
In fact the value just went offa cliff, I mean, the market
completely burst in that moment.
So the ones who didn't get outbefore then, by and large, have
lost all their money.
So that's.
It's a kind of interesting storyfrom the perspective of, you

(46:28):
know, the idea of antiquities asan investment.
And if you go back to thatpoint I was making earlier about
how antiquities can beunderstood in all of these
different ways, I think that'sone way to understand what went
wrong here.
Right, if you just think ofantiquities as beautiful
artworks that belong to theworld, you can make a case for

(46:51):
them as an investment asset, asan investment class.
But if you understandantiquities, if you understand
antiquities as archaeologicalartifacts, as national patrimony
right, then those are paradigmsthat don't work at all with the
idea of antiquities as aninvestment vehicle.

(47:11):
And basically, what happened inthe early 2000s is that that
national patrimony paradigmprevailed over antiquities as
art.

Lara Ayad (47:22):
Yeah, and that's fascinating too, because it's
almost like you could almostargue that Jerome Eisenberg was
almost a democratizer of art ina way that he was bringing art
and bringing antiquities to themasses, including to these
investors who, for the most part, from what I understand, didn't
have a background studying art.
They didn't really know aboutart.

(47:43):
But you know, you kind of likehe brought these artworks to
these people's like look at thisbeautiful world patrimony, look
at this beautiful worldheritage.
You can invest in some of this,like as an asset, but also like
you are kind of becoming partof this global universal story
or paradigm, if you will.
So there's there's that thing,on the one hand, of Eisenberg

(48:06):
being a democratizer, but on theother hand, what he's
essentially doing and thisconnects back to what you were
talking about with, like bubonand turkey and the circulation
of the bronzes earlier On theother hand, what Eisenberg was
doing was also funding thelooting of cultural heritage and
kind of putting it up for grabs, if I'm understanding right.

Yes, absolutely Absolutely.
That was one of the things thatdistinguished him from other
antiquities dealers during thistime period.
He was very happy to movevolume, so he was very willing
to sell less expensiveantiquities.
Right, he wasn't one of thesedealers who just catered to the

(48:48):
super wealthy and just soldtop-end pieces, top end pieces.
Eisenberg did sell some veryhigh end pieces, but over the
course of his career hiscommercial practice was really
distinguished by the volume ofpieces that he was moving and
selling to investors like thesekind of middle class, you know,

(49:10):
like doctors and dentists andmid-level auto executive, auto
industry executives outside ofDetroit.
Right, that's who was buyingthese pieces.
So, yeah, not people who cameto the art world who were
interested in antiquities, whocared about, you know, the
various gods and figures whowere represented on these

(49:31):
objects.
That was not their interest atall.
And in fact the investors werequite adamant with me like no,
no, no, we did not have anyinterest in art, this was just
an investment and in fact manyof them had been involved with a
previous investment opportunitywith Eisenberg in rare stamps.
So, whether it's like rare USstamps or ancient antiquities,

(49:53):
it was sort of all the same tothem.

Lara Ayad (49:58):
Yeah, it looks like Eisenberg had a couple of
different markets there that healready landed.
I mean, it's just kind of likeI'm sitting here sort of
marveling.

I'm critical of Eisenberg but I'm also kind
of marveling at just how likeresourceful he was, if you want
to say that I mean he was, youknow yeah, yeah, the catalog
that he produced that was sortof at the base of this whole
operation, the catalog he issuedin 1985, which doubles as a
guide to the collector andinvestor, is really a remarkable

(50:30):
document in his efforts to kindof create a whole different way
of understanding antiquities inthe US.

Lara Ayad (50:39):
That's incredible.
That's amazing.
Well and clearly.
I mean, you know people canlearn about ancient Roman
antiquities, for instance, whenthey go to museums, and then you
have these like sets ofinvestors who sort of just saw
art, the stamps, the marbles,the antiquities is all the same
thing.
But ancient Rome seems to havecaptured the imaginations of
people all over the world, butparticularly in the United

(51:02):
States and in parts of Europe,and what I think is so
interesting is that you seeancient Rome portrayed in so
many movies and shows, and Iknow there's a Gladiator sequel
that's actually set to bereleased later this November.
What do you think of theseshows and movies?
Do you think that Hollywooddoes a good job of portraying
life in ancient Rome?

Well, okay, so there's two ways to answer
that question.
So I am a professional, youknow, I have a degree in this.
And the short answer.
There's two ways to say no,yeah, I mean so the?
You know the short answer is no.
They like they get a millionthings wrong.
It's cringy.
You know we sit in theaudiences.

(51:45):
You know I sit in the audienceand I'm like rolling my eyes
about all the things they getwrong.

Lara Ayad (51:51):
What did they get wrong?

What's like the first thing that comes to
mind for you oh, I remember inthe first gladiator there's a
scene inside marcus aurelius'stent and he's got all these
marble portrait busts in histent.
So already it's ridiculousright that a roman emperor would
bring marble portraits out oncampaign with him.
This is the opening scene ofthe movie.

(52:12):
You know where they're?
Like in the middle of theGerman forest, so like guess
what?
They weren't schlepping aroundthese like 80 pound marble busts
with them.

Lara Ayad (52:22):
They were much more practical.

Yeah, that was already ridiculous.
But then the thing that I waslike really snorting about is
that Marcus Aurelius is shownhaving a portrait bust of one of
the emperors who comes afterhim in his tent, right, so like
no, you know, he was notclairvoyant, he couldn't, he
didn't have ESP and know who afuture emperor was going to be
to have a bust of him in histent.

(52:44):
So you know, they get detailslike that wrong.
I have a friend, kind of animportant kind of an important
detail.
Yeah, I have a friend who wasasked to be a consultant.
I won't name what the show was.
She was asked to be aconsultant on one of these kind
of hollywood type productionsand they asked her um, all right

(53:06):
, so you know, the opening sceneis a wedding and we want to
know how would the ancientromans have decorated the inside
of a temple for a wedding?
And my friend had to say, likeRomans didn't get married in
temples, that's.
You know, we understand whereyou're coming from.

Lara Ayad (53:25):
Like today, we get married in churches.

So back then they must've been married in
temples.
But in fact, no, that's notwhat temples were used for.
And she was told well, we'vealready built the set, so tell
us, like, how to decorate it.
She was like, okay, nevermind,I cannot work with you people.
So you know, so there's alwaysgoing to be this kind of
enormous, unbridgeable gulfbetween what the experts know

(53:49):
and what people who care aboutthe entertainment of the masses
prioritize, so sort of from theget-go.
You know, when you ask me aquestion like that, my answer
has to be like oh no, thesemovies about ancient rome are
terrible because they geteverything wrong.
That said, I will say I have astrong populist streak and it is

(54:10):
my view that if these moviesare exciting and reach wide
audiences, that makes it muchmore likely that those audiences
might go to the library andcheck out a book about ancient
Rome.

Lara Ayad (54:27):
Or maybe listen to a podcast where an ancient Roman
specialist is coming on andtalking about antiquities.
An ancient Roman specialist iscoming on and talking about
antiquities.

Yes, there's so many good podcasts out there
today about ancient history,about, you know, ancient history
in the modern world, the Roman,I mean, there's everything.
There's so many ways to gethigh quality information and I

(54:57):
think if a popular movie or TVshow peaks, does a good job of
peaking somebody's curiosity andthat prompts them to want to
learn more.
Whether it's as a podcast ortaking a class at college or
reading a book or whatever it is, I think that that does a lot
of good.
So I would rather that thesemovies do get made than not.

Lara Ayad (55:13):
Yeah, because my understanding to Liz is that and
I've seen this even too in myown previous life as a college
professor too and talking withother academics is that some
people feel like, oh well, thosemovies shouldn't get made
because they're getting it wrongand so.
But what you're saying isactually no, if the movies are
at least starting people offgetting interested in that part

(55:35):
of the world or parts of theworld, that part of history or
that time and place, then that'sa good starting point.
Right To then give someinformation to people about.
oh well, actually this is kindof how life was like and maybe
they got some of the costumesright, but you know people
didn't get married in temples,and here it's a resource where
you can learn more about thatyes yes, yeah, absolutely yeah,

(55:59):
yeah, you know, um, when I Ialso learned a lot about ancient
Rome, of course, in school,like when I was in high school,
I learned that ancient Rome wasjust, it was the Hallmark of
Western civilization.
It's the model for Americangovernment and democracy.
Um, you know, if you go toWashington DC, you'll see
buildings that are looselymodeled off of ancient Roman

(56:22):
buildings temples,administrative buildings, with
the columns flanking, andthey're like kind of symmetrical
and even like mainstream mediaoutlets, wikipedia they tend to
portray ancient Rome in a verysimilar way, even to this day,
as this benchmark of Westerncivilization.
You hear that term a lot.
I wanted to put this conceptkind of in conversation with

(56:47):
some extremist groups that we'veseen active over the past five
to 10 years, and that includesgroups like the Proud Boys, and
I bring this up because actuallythey've kind of resurged in
news media very recently whenPresident Donald Trump was
victim to that attemptedassassination.

(57:08):
One of the groups to come outand claim to defend him during
the presidential campaign is theProud Boys.
And I think this is sointeresting because my
understanding about groups likethe Proud Boys is that they
actually put a lot of stock inwhat they see as ancient Roman
culture and this larger idea ofWestern civilization, and they

(57:29):
actually claim that theirideology they describe it as
Western chauvinism.
So they are basically claimingthat Western civilization is
superior and that it was whollyresponsible for creating the
modern world.
So I'm curious from yourperspective, liz, as someone who
knows a lot about ancient Rome,you know a lot about its span
what do you think of the ProudBoys' claims, especially given

(57:51):
how popular ancient Romanculture, as we think of it, is
in the United States?

Yeah, I mean, obviously it's like toxic and
horrifying, and I think a lot ofthe rhetoric that you are
pointing to, you know, I don'tthink everybody who uses the
term Western civilization meansthis, but certainly I think for
groups like the Proud Boys, Ithink Western civilization is
the more polite way of sayingwhite supremacy, right?

(58:19):
I mean, I think there's a lotof spaces where those two things
are, just like you know, sortof at the same end of the
spectrum, and I do think it'sreally important for those of us
with training, with historicaltraining in this area, to do
everything we can to push backagainst that kind of rhetoric,

(58:41):
um, and to help peopleunderstand that, like there is
no, like western civilization isa construct, right, there's,
there's no such thing as westerncivilization.
It is, um, it's, it's ahistoriographical invention that
In what sense?

Lara Ayad (58:57):
What's a historiographical invention?
Just so that our listeners canunderstand.

Yeah, yeah, I mean in order.
So the story of Westerncivilization, you know, is a
story in which there's some,there's some nugget.
Anthony Appiah describes it aslike a golden nugget, you know
that like starts, starts inEgypt and then is somehow
transmitted to Greece and thento Rome, and then, like, maybe

(59:24):
it's like a little bit submergedthrough the dark ages and then
it reappears in the ItalianRenaissance and shapes, you know
, the flourishing of Europe, andthen eventually it's
transmitted to the US.

Lara Ayad (59:38):
And this idea that there's like I just want to say
sorry to interrupt.
I just want to say I think it'salso kind of ironic and
hilarious that this whole thingstarts in Africa.
Essentially, yes.
We can talk about we can talkabout Egypt and its place in
Africa, maybe for anotherconversation, but I do think
that is quite interesting.

The Western civilizationists will, like you
know, basically ignore the factthat Egypt is located in Africa.
They won't look at a map youknow, yeah, yeah, exactly that.
You know.
The problem with this goldennugget concept is that it
requires the erasure, right likethe ignoring, of a whole bunch

(01:00:17):
of other phenomena in order totell the story that way, right.
So, for example, just to namelike you know, there's hundreds
of examples of things I couldmention that you know.
That would show you that thereis no no like clear through line
.

Lara Ayad (01:00:36):
Of Western civilization.
What's a great example thatstrikes you?
I?

Elizabeth Marlowe (01:00:40):
mean.
One example of it is that hugenumbers of the Greek texts that
have come down to us we havemainly because Muslim scholars
in places like Damascus andBaghdad and Cairo were very
interested in them and they werethe ones who were copying them

(01:01:01):
and, like studying themathematical principles and the
philosophical treatises and thenatural science, I mean like
that was like a major routethrough which many of these
texts actually arrived.
Or, you know, another questionwe might put to this whole
Western civilization model islike is Russia part of it or not

(01:01:25):
?
Right, is Russia like on ourside or not on our side?
Because you could argue thatthe religious tradition that is
closest to the form ofChristianity that emerged right
out of the Roman Empire, right,the Christianity that goes, that
flourishes in Constantinople,right, that's Russian Eastern
Orthodox religion today, right?

(01:01:47):
Like is that the air of Westerncivilization over there?
Because, like, for a very longtime those guys were not framed
as being on our side.
So, there's any number ofexamples that we could bring in
to say like here's one way, itdoesn't work, here's another way
it doesn't work, here's a wholecategory, you know.
And also like what are thevalues of Western civilization

(01:02:10):
right?
Is slavery part of Westerncivilization or not part of
Western civilization?

Lara Ayad (01:02:15):
Well, that's an interesting point, Liz, because
in most parts of the ancientworld, including ancient Rome,
people had slaves, and theseslaves were sometimes brought
from other parts of what's nowEurope.
Sometimes these slaves werebrought over from parts of
what's now West Asia, parts ofwhat's now Africa, but it wasn't
those kinds of continents withthe racial designations they

(01:02:36):
have were not understood in thatway in the ancient world, if I
understand correct.
Yeah, absolutely.

And so you know people will try to tell you
that like liberty is like partof our Western heritage, but
like or Western civilization,like, like, what does that even
mean?
Or they'll try to suggest thatdemocracy is a through line of
Western civilization.
But that's also like very muchnot true, right?
Athens' experiment withdemocracy like ended pretty

(01:03:07):
quickly within a generation ortwo, and then nobody thought
that was a good idea.
Nobody's consciously revivingthe Athenian model of democracy
for millennia, right?
I mean, read what the Britishhave to say about democracy in
like the 18th and 19th century.
They think this is a terribleidea.
So the notion that there's anykind of like actual continuity

(01:03:30):
that ties this all together andthat leaves out the parts of the
world that we don't think of asbeing part of Western
civilization, it just doesn'twork historically.

Lara Ayad (01:03:41):
Right right.

So that's what?
Yeah, when I say it's ahistoriographical construct,
right?
What that means is just likesomeone has chosen to connect
the dots in a very particularway because it serves their
interests in the present.

Lara Ayad (01:03:57):
That's so interesting and it also has some real
implications, Liz, for like whatyou're revealing as
implications too, for even likeportrayals of of race in ancient
Rome, Like when you look atlike movies and shows and stuff
like that, especially from, likeI'd say, 10 to 15 years ago and
older, everyone's portrayed asbeing kind of like Anglo white,

(01:04:21):
if you will, and I think nowthere are some shows and movies
coming up that are kind ofpushing against that.
But but can you, can you tellus like who exactly was an
ancient Roman in ancient times?
Like, was that one kind of raceof people?
Was that one ethnicity ofpeople?
How would you describe that?

I mean, one of the things we know about the
ancient world was that it wasincredibly interconnected and
that there were movements ofpeople all over the place.
Right, I mean, the real thingthat ties the Roman empire
together is the Mediterranean,and that was a very navigable
body of water.
So there's people moving allthe time, whether for reasons of

(01:05:02):
commerce.
The Roman army is is a likeremarkable force in terms of,
like, moving populations allaround and kind of scrambling
populations.
So, yeah, there, there's nolike, there's no pure, there's
no pure Roman line.
One of the one of the reallyinteresting like non

(01:05:24):
controversies recently was whenthe BBC produced a show about
Troy, you know kind of fictionalaccount of the fall of Troy,
and they cast someone with blackskin to play the role of
Achilles and people went crazy.
And they also went crazybecause there was a dark skinned

(01:05:45):
person portraying Zeus.
Like we know that Zeus waswhite, like what is that?

Lara Ayad (01:05:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah and.

Achilles isn't a real person either.
So you know like these are thesenotions of like who is white?
It's just not.
It wasn't an ancient way ofthinking.
You know, one of the ways wecan clearly see skin color
having totally differentsignificance in the ancient

(01:06:15):
world compared to what it doesfor us If you look at wall
painting from the Roman world,one of the really striking
features is that skin color isused to differentiate men from
women.
Yes, absolutely, it's not amarker of race, it's a marker of
gender, right, which we alsoknow isn't true, right, right.

Lara Ayad (01:06:34):
It's not a marker of race, it's a marker of gender
right, which we also know isn't,isn't true, right, it's not
like women were walking aroundwith pale, yellow skin and men
were all just ruddy and brown,like that's not that simple,
because there were working classwomen who worked outside got
dark.
There were upper class men whogot to stay inside and were much
, maybe, lighter skinned, andthose people have different
ethnic backgrounds than they runthe entire rainbow, right, yeah

(01:06:56):
.
Yeah yeah, that's fascinating.
Well, I am very, not only likereally excited to hear more
about scholars really kind ofbusting myths about ancient Rome
and seeing how this gladiatorsequel is gonna come out in
relation to this, but also, like, where can people find out more
about, like, what happens withthe DA's office in New York and

(01:07:17):
those bubon statues?
Like, are we going to hear alittle more about it?
Are you going to post about iton social media?

I hope so.
Right now all eyes are on onemuseum.
The Cleveland Museum of Art isthe last one that is holding on
to its bubon statue and in factwe're all sort of waiting to see
what's going to happen withthat case.
I'm sort of waiting with my ownpublishing process of this

(01:07:49):
story to see what's going tohappen with the Cleveland case,
but yeah, yeah, cleveland.
Whereas all of the othermuseums, as soon as the
Manhattan District Attorneyshowed up and said we believe
you have a piece that was lootedfrom Bubon, they said oh yes,
look at that, we do.
And handed it right over.
Right.
I'm exaggerating a little bit,but the process was pretty
smooth because the story hadbeen so well documented and told

(01:08:14):
so many times since 1970.
But unlike any of the other USinstitutions, the Cleveland
Museum of Art has taken a verydifferent stance and has
basically said prove it, whichit depends what the burden of
proof is going to be, whetherthe overwhelming circumstantial

(01:08:36):
evidence that tie their statueto that site is going to be
enough for them that the loss ofthat statue would be so
tremendous to the quality oftheir collection, to their sense

(01:09:08):
of themselves as an institution, that they are willing to take
what I see as a tremendous riskto their reputation in trying to
fight this.
Whether their statue was stolenfrom this particular site in
Turkey or whether it was stolenfrom somewhere else they don't
have an export license there isno doubt that that statue was
stolen from somewhere, and it issurprising to me that they are

(01:09:31):
choosing not to see this momentas an opportunity to say oh yes,
our collecting practices in thepast conformed with ethical
norms back then, but we, likeeverybody else, are now
operating under a differentethical paradigm.
We recognize the shift inpublic opinion.
We recognize the new ethicallandscape in public opinion.

(01:09:53):
We recognize the new ethicallandscape.
That museum, for whateverreason, is sort of saying like,
yeah, no, we don't recognizethat and we are going to dig in
our heels and defend the choicewe made in 1986 when we bought
this thing that was smoking hotand not give it back because you
can't prove that.
You know exactly which hole inthe ground it came out of.

Lara Ayad (01:10:17):
Wow, sounds like the Cleveland Museum might need some
of your Brussels sprout icecream.
I don't know.

I've dished it up.
I wrote a very scathing article, another article in
Hyperallergic.
You can add it to your shownotes if you want, I will
Awesome.
I wrote an article really kindof laying out the case, like the
ethical case for them tosurrender that piece.
But you know, so far they'renot listening to me.

Lara Ayad (01:10:45):
Maybe, hopefully, down the line, they will listen,
and I'll definitely put that inthe show notes for sure,
because I'm sure that listenersare really going to be wanting
to eat that up.
How can people follow you onsocial media?
How can they get your news?

I am on Twitter, or X as it is, um, even
though I feel like I'm on asinking ship there.
Uh, they should email me.
I'm happy, I'm happy to chatwith anyone.
I I love talking about thesekinds of things.
I'm you know.
People tell me what they'reinterested in.
I'll recommend more readings tothem.

Lara Ayad (01:11:19):
Awesome.
Yeah, I'll put your.
I'll put your contact and yourex or Twitter contact in the
show notes as well.
And yeah, this was so much fun,Liz.
I feel like I learned so muchand I mean, I'm just, I'm just
thrilled that we got to havethis conversation.
So thank you so much for beingon the Cheeky Scholar.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me.
It was really fun to chat withyou about all of this and, yeah,
I look forward to seeing whereyou go with the podcast next
Awesome.

Lara Ayad (01:11:44):
Thanks a lot.

Take care you too.

Lara Ayad (01:11:47):
Bye.

Bye.

Lara Ayad (01:11:52):
Procrastinating on that study group.
Join us instead and hit thesubscribe button.
You'll get the newest episodesdelivered right to your favorite
podcast app while you'rethinking about college and all
those other life choices.
Thanks for joining us on theCheeky Scholar and until next
time, keep it real and keep itcheeky.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Are Museums Lying About Their Antiquities?

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

Are Museums Lying About Their Antiquities?

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club