99% Invisible - 493- Divining Provenance

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Priceless cultural artifacts have been plundered and sold for hundreds of years. You can find these relics in museums and in private collections. In recent years, with the advent of online marketplaces, researchers have begun to find a lot of artifacts for sale on the web.The Syrian War has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties. Not to mention, hundreds of billions in damages. And that battle has played out on land considered to be the cradle of civilization -- a place rich with layers of archeological history.Producer Zeina Dowidar and her team on the Kerning Cultures podcast tell stories about the Middle East and North Africa. For this episode, they took a comprehensive, inside look at how one country struggled to retain its cultural heritage in the midst of a brutal conflict.Divining ProvenancePlus we have an interview and preview of the podcast Real Good

Just a quick note, today's episode contains some descriptions of violence. This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. Priceless cultural artifacts have been plundered and sold for hundreds of years. You can find these relics in museums and in private collections. But in 2014, researchers discovered that looters had a new tool in the trade of stolen antiquities. Facebook. Secret Facebook groups, with as many as 100,000 members, are devoted to the selling and buying of cultural artifacts. Their items can go for thousands, even tens of thousands of

dollars. Producer Zena Doudar. A study of the Facebook listings found that nearly a third of the artifacts were stolen from conflict zones. International treaties, such as the 1970 UNESCO convention, criminalized the purchase and sale of lucid treasures. But even so, at the time, none of this was technically against Facebook's guidelines. And Facebook isn't the only place with a market for traffic tentiquities.

Do a search on eBay using the vague buzzwords of the industry, words like Mesopotamian or Byzantine, and you can come up with all sorts of listings too. Here are just a few. Near Eastern Mesopotamian Terracotta plaque, $750. Circa Mesopotamian finely carved black stone bull, $623. Museum quality, original ancient plaque relief of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess, $3,000. It's hard to know whether or not these specific items were looted from the Middle East, but we do know this.

One of the organizations responsible for the pillaged artifacts floating around the Internet is ISIS. Zaina and her team on the Curning Culture's podcast tell stories about the Middle East and North Africa. And what they reported for an episode in the latest season of their show is a comprehensive inside look at how one country struggled to retain its cultural heritage amid a brutal conflict. The Syrian war has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties and not to mention hundreds of billions

in damages. And that battle has played out on land considered to be the cradle of civilization. I can tell you that every Syrian, literally today, lives either on top of an archaeological site, right next to Orton archaeological site, or within a stone's throw of an archaeological site. This is Amr Alaz.

He is a Syrian archaeologist. He's currently a professor of Middle Eastern history and anthropology at Choney State University in Ohio. But before moving to the states, he worked in Damascus. How did you first become interested in archaeology? Do you sort of remember the time when you began to become fascinated with it? Yes, I do because it had nothing to do with me. My mom wanted to be an archaeologist by trade. And so as a child, I would be constantly dragged around to every possible museum, archaeological, or anything,

to make sure I was kind of soaking it all in. Amr did soak it all in. He went on to do excavations all across Syria. So when the war started back in 2011, Amr felt like he needed to do his part, to protect the country's cultural heritage. For most of the war, foreign reporters, human rights monitors, and cultural heritage organizations had very little access inside the country.

But Amr had local connections, so he co-founded an emergency initiative called Day After. The group was a sort of impromptu detective squad made up of archaeologists, several of them, former students and colleagues, from his teaching days in Damascus. So they would go out and try to record and document damage to the local cultural heritage sites, local museums, etc. Whatever they can visit. The group would take notes and photos of the damaged sites and report back to Amr. I had a chance to speak with one of the people he recruited for day after. A man named Adnan Al-Mahamad.

We interviewed him in Arabic and had an actor voice his lines in English. He was my university professor, and he told me that artifacts are not just all things from the past, but they are part of us. Even his lectures were different. He used to stand on the table and speak about how amazing historical artifacts are and how valuable they are. Yes, yes, I did. Well, you know, there's a kind of a reason for some of this in that, you know, this is the late 90s and early 2000s and we had very little resources to teach our students with. So often I would have to try to be very creative in trying to visualize, help students visualize whatever it is I was describing. help students visualize whatever it is I was describing. And clearly, at least for Adnan, it worked. Am's lesson stuck with him all these years later.

When he joined the emergency initiative, Adnan was living in Mambige, a city in the north of Syria. At the start of the war, he said there wasn't much of a threat to the sites he was monitoring, which were mostly on the outskirts of the city. But everything changed when ISIS came. ISIS took control of Manbij in 2014. Almost overnight, Adnan's job became extremely dangerous. The day the ISIS convoy came to our area,

there were about seven tanks and five or six, four by four cars with ISIS fighters inside. I watched as they arrived in my village and took someone from the village to show them around. We started to feel that even something is as simple as taking photos of artifacts was dangerous. We didn't know who we were dealing with because they were all different nationalities.

It was scary. ISIS destroyed a lot, even did it for show at times. But they also knew that they needed to be savvy. Running at the Factor Caliphate is costly. It required a lot of equipment and manpower. So among the first things ISIS realized when they started taking over Syrian cities and towns, was that there was money to be made in looting and exporting antiquities. They see cultural heritage as a resource.

And so as a resource like any other resource, it gets put under the Wainarikas and it then becomes something to exploit. The Wiener Ricchaz was ISIS's ministry for resource management. Amri explained to us that that's where they set up their clearinghouse, which basically controlled the trafficking and sale of artifacts. ISIS would sell the stolen items at auctions in the northern city of Rokka. Everything. Everything. Misex, glass, statues, reliefs, palmarine, reliefs from Palmyra, coins, artifacts, anything, anything and everything.

Within a year, it became a really profitable operation for ISIS. Artifacts could sell to foreign buyers for as much as $35,000 a piece. As ISIS made more and more money, the scope of the mission for Adnan's detective group grew. Now, his job went beyond surveying sites. He was also being asked to document how these antiquities were leaving Syria. Adnan would visit sites pillaged by ISIS and take pictures, smuggling the files back home on a memory card that he kept tucked away in his jacket. He was paid a couple hundred dollars a month by Amra's organization to document the

ISIS antique trade, but the risk he was taking was massive. Sometimes I went to Mambush twice a week and beheadings were common. I always saw them beheading young people. Everybody was pale, and you could see the fear in their faces. I didn't think I would survive ISIS, so I wanted to share this information with someone who could use it in the media or in academia. Adnan would be an ISIS-controlled territory for a week or two at a time, driving his motorbike into the center of Rokka where he'd witnessed those antique auctions up close.

When he had what he needed, he'd head north, wearing a black leather jacket, taking a route through ISIS checkpoints on the way out. ISIS liked the color black. I was keen to blend in as much as possible with the right length, beard and hair, because they were closely monitoring how we looked. They would take anybody who looked different out of their car and interrogate them. It was all routine questions, and I started to figure out the pattern of what happens at these checkpoints.

I made my sentences short and to the point. The more you say, the more chance you would make a mistake." Once he was past the checkpoints, Adnan would drive up to a town called Jaroblos, right on the border with Turkey. He'd managed to get a hold of a Turkish SIM card, and from there, Adnan could pick up enough signal to send the pictures he'd taken to his wife, who had moved to Turkey with his three children. Adnan's wife would then relay the report to Amr, who'd be waiting for it, back in the

states. And I think the worst time for me was when I knew that one of my guys was inside, basically gathering information, and I would be waiting for his transmission, waiting for, like, literally sometimes two, three weeks for him to get out again safely, and then I would know he's safe, and I could then breathe. Adnan Woodson, Amra Pictures of ISIS excavation sites or reports on a conversation he had with a local dealer. All details about how exactly the ISIS trafficking operation worked.

But while he was undercover, there was nothing he could actually do to put an end to the trafficking. When I held artifacts, I was an agony because I knew they would leave serious order later. I would just take photos of them that the most I could do, hoping that one day they would find their way back.

ISIS's looting and trafficking operation is the most destructive crime against Syrian cultural heritage that the country has seen in generations. But it isn't the whole picture. Amg told us that most of the cultural heritage trafficked out of Syria in the last 10 years was done by regular people who lost their jobs and turned to trafficking because there was nothing else left. The looting starts in 2012. And I think a lot of it was what we refer to as subsistence looting.

This is people who've lost their livelihoods. They assume in their minds that there's very treasure all over the place. Every syring knows someone whose uncle from their great grandfather's side from his second wife whilst digging in their courtyard or basement or something came across a very part of gold. So there's this kind of urban myth almost,

that there's this gold somewhere. So people start to dig around and look for it. And like I said, many people live near or on top of archeological sites. So they know that there's stuff in the ground. And it's not, it's not difficult for them to find it. Instead of prosecuting people for stealing or resource they were using to fund their war,

ISIS went in the other direction. They decided to manage these looted items, encouraged it even, by taking a 20% cut on all sales from private citizens. A lot of these transactions would happen after the item had made it safely across the border to Turkey. There, at auctions, dealers and buyers from all over the world joined to bid on these stolen goods. Somewhere from nearby countries in the Middle East, but others would travel from further a field. For example, there was this one well-known buyer, Amr spent ages unsuccessfully trying to track down. She was a German lady who literally regularly came down to Southern Turkey, she would set up shop

there and then she would have people bring goods up through the kind of the border smuggled into where she is and then they would show her the wares and she would buy what she wants and then they would get shipped out to her. And looters were becoming savvy themselves. According to Adnan, artifacts that would fetch only tens or hundreds of dollars in Syria could be sold for thousands of dollars in secret Facebook groups.

The local swuggling networks would reach out to Adnan asking how much he thought an item could go for and to check its authenticity. Quickly, the internet was full of listings. I would guess, probably, or not legit, but the problem is there's no way to prove that. This is Mark Atowil, Vice-Din at the University College London. And as part of his research, he tracks the trade of antiquities coming from the Middle East. Maybe about five or six years ago, I remember looking at eBay, I saw I think something that looked like Kineha Form Tablet.

These things are coming out of a country where we know Kineha Form Tablet is written in a specific ancient language, usually, and it usually comes from only a few places, usually Syria, Iraq, maybe Turkey, or Iran. So it's most likely to be coming one of those countries, and seeing something like that means it's very likely to be in an illegal sale. So it should have thrown red flags.

So my reaction is like, why is it so easy? For researchers like Mark, it's really difficult to track how many illegal antiques there are for sale at any given moment in Europe or the US. From the outside looking in, the market for this stuff is full of loopholes. But let me try to simplify. For an antique item to be sold legally in the US or in Europe,

it needs to have what they call provenance. That is essentially a kind of sales history to prove that it hasn't been taken from its country of origin after 1970. 1970 because that's when the UN brought in this rule that basically said any cultural items that leave their country of origin from now on are considered illegal loot. But anything that was their country of origin from now on are considered illegal loot. But anything that was already out of the country is fine. It's too late to try and do anything about those items. Let's say I'm a dealer, okay, and I acquired this item.

The only way I can claim that it's legal is if I can demonstrate that this was somehow acquired prior to 1970, then anything that happens to it beyond that is legal. But if you want to talk about ethical, no, it's not legal, it was looted. This is one of those loopholes that we were talking about. Because according to Amr, it's often left up to the dealers and buyers to check provenance for themselves. The different countries have different ways of determining what is considered due diligence. And that is part of the problem. Right now, you as a buyer and a seller are supposed to do your due diligence.

You're supposed to make sure that the object, just as you make sure the object is authentic. Everybody does a due diligence or a lot of enthusiasm because nobody wants to buy a fake. Oh, we put a lot of effort and time into that. But when it comes to provenance, we get a little sketchy, you get a little hazy. I mean, I've seen provenance like the seller swears that they've had it in their family. What swear? What do you mean swears? Really?

So you have to be really stupid to get caught. And if you look at the number of convictions from the antiquities laws that exist in the UK for instance, it's very few. You could probably hold in one hand you can count the number of convictions. So the people I know have been caught have been caught because they were ignorant of the law. And that means that the laws are not strong. It means that the burden of proof is often on people like me or others who are trying to find people who are stealing these things. And that's not the way it should be in my opinion.

Our team got in touch with dozens more people selling and ticks from the Middle East on eBay. Barely any of them responded and only one was willing to talk to us in her recorded interview. Hello. Oh hi, is that Kiara? Yeah, Kiara speaking. Kiara, sorry, that's I wasn't quite sure. This is my colleague Alex speaking with a seller named Kiara based in the UK. She had a listing for an ancient Mesopotamian seal stamp on eBay for 220 British pounds, along with thousands of other items.

She told us that roughly 20% of the items she sells are from the Middle East, and she said that she buys most of them from job lots, that is, buying a big batch of items from an auction house or private cellar in bulk. So, like, something we've been hearing a bit about is like provenance, especially when it comes to items from the Middle East. And so when you buy something from a job lot, like does it come with provenance or... No, not always. No, I mean rarely happens, whether we have something with provenance. I mean, rarely happens, whatever we have something with provenance. Oh, it rarely happens.

Actually, we've job lots because it's just a collection of things, maybe from a collector or from a house clearance or something like this, so they don't necessarily come with something that's attached to the person or where it's coming from. Oh, interesting. So you kind of don't really have any idea about where it came from before you had it? No, no. She told us that when she buys an item that doesn't have provenance and she doesn't know much about where it came from,

she'll bring an expert in to take a look. But that's mostly to make sure it's not fake, not to make sure it's legal. I guess, I mean, I don't want to sound rude. I'm just asking like, how do you sort of, though, that the items that you're selling have been in the UK for long enough time that they haven't been trafficked from, let's say, Syria recently during the war? Honestly, there's truly not really a way to know, because I get all of my items from auction houses, so I mean it would be them that would have to have that responsibility of knowing

that information. I don't know that information, I don't know where the auction house got it from, so there's no way for me to know. We're not saying that Kira was selling items that were illegally trafficked into the UK, or that her items had false provenance. As Mark said, there's really no way of knowing if any one item is legal or illegal when the due diligence falls only on the seller. We reached out to eBay and live auctioneers to ask about their policies on illegal or looted

artifacts. Live Auctioneers told us that anybody selling items on their platform has to do their due diligence to make sure that what they're selling is legal. Essentially, it's up to the seller. They said they have a zero tolerance policy on listing anything that's suspected to be stolen. But when we asked if they take an active role in making sure the items sold on their website are all legal, they didn't give us an answer. eBay said, quote, the sale of illicit antiques and artifacts is prohibited on eBay, in line

with UK and international laws and regulations. We work closely with authorities such as UNESCO, Interpol, and the European Commission to provide a safe and secure online marketplace that prevents illegal trade while enabling the legal sale of antiquities. All sellers on eBay are required to comply with our artifact policy. We have automatic block filters that prevent listings of any items which breach our policies, and we also have teams continuously monitoring the site to identify and remove any prohibited listings. We also take strong enforcement action against sellers who violate these policies, which can include temporary bans and permanent suspensions. And as for Facebook, Amr told us that Facebook updated its community standards in June 2020

to ban the sale and exchange of cultural heritage items. But he said, the rules aren't widely enforced. Amra is still tracking dozens of buy and sell antiquities groups. For Amra and Mark, they really only see one solution to clean this industry up. Punish the people by the looted items. This is the supply and demand end.

And remember, the supply side is driven by demand. So, you know, we often focus on the supply side because that's the, in some ways, the easier side to blame. Well, you're destroying your heritage, you're looting it, you're, you know, we're trying to save it, etc. How about you try and convince people not to buy legitimate entities? How about you basically clean up the trade? How about you make it illegal, so illegal, so, you know,

grievous that if you are caught with a traffic item from a conflict zone like Syria, that you will go to jail for 30, 40, 50 years. You know, then I guarantee you there will be no more demand, or the demand will drop to such a level that basically people won't do it anymore. You're not doing anyone a favor by buying this item. You're only, you know, pleasing yourself. The best way for this item is to stay where it came from. And as for Adnan, after spending more than a year secretly traveling in and out of ISIS-nene, بعد ذلك مرحباً من مرحباً و من المرحباً في ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل ترسل تر ترسل ترسل ترس ترسل ترسل ترسل تر cultural heritage, even with the odds stacked against him. Thankfully, it didn't come to that. It was the worst part of my life, but I'm proud of what we did.

I felt like I was on a patriotic mission, like I was doing something big. 99% Invisible was produced and edited this week by Zaina Dau-Dar, Alex A.Tac and Jason Delion, fact-checking by Graham Haysha, mixed in tech production by Martin Gonzales, music by our director of sound Swan Rial. Voiceovers were performed by Abdullah Al-Asia. Special thanks to Dana Belute, Nadine Shacker, Tamara Jaburi, Amra Al-Asam, Adnan Al-Mahamed, Rosen Kamel Mahamed Amin, Mark Altowiel, Kiaro Peterson, Alice Fordham, and Salman Ahad Khan. This episode was made in collaboration with Kurning Cultures that's Kurning with Akay, you can hear their latest excellent season of that excellent show wherever you find podcasts. Up next I'll tell you about a real good podcast. Call real good. Stay tuned.

Hey everyone, this is a sponsored segment about a sponsored podcast, which happens to be sponsored by a bank. So it is capitalism all the way down. However, one of the main reasons I wanted to do this interview was because the co-host of the podcast is Faith Saley. She's a contributor to CBS on the morning and a regular panelist for weight weight, don't tell me. But I first got to know her in the mid-2000s

on her nightly public radio show Fair Game, which I had a great fondness for. Faith's current podcast is called Real Good from US Bank, and she co-hosts it with the chief diversity officer of US Bank, Greg Cunningham, who refers to himself as an accidental banker. And when I spoke with them both about their show,

you could tell that Greg was a man on a mission. For me at least, the purpose of the podcast was to sort of break down these barriers to trust. I mean, particularly in communities of color, there's a well-earned history of this trust. I mean, the banking industry has earned it, right? And so so much of it was about bringing these people, these stories, these tangible examples

of how we were putting our money where our mouth was, that we weren't just making these big pronouncements like other companies were like making in the wake of George Floyd's murder, but we were actually doing the work. And we were actually being really transparent about the outcomes that were happening as a result of the investment we were making. And it wasn't just about a bunch of activity and that we wanted to be really transparent about the progress and let the public hold us accountable to making progress. And it was all of that. It was all of, you know, us really being truthful about our why. Like it wasn't just about the what of the work we were doing. It was why we were

doing it and why it was important and who we were doing it with. So that's the perspective of someone who works for the bank who's from that community, who's trying to get the word out. But Faith, you are not coming from that world, you're writer, a storyteller, what do you get out of these conversations and what do you hope other people will get out of it?

You know, as a storyteller and a writer, I had this amazing gift of primarily being a listener and a learner, right? My mind has been blown over the three seasons of talking with Greg and the people we've gotten a chance to talk to together, Greg. Well, this is what I've heard, Greg, you can tell me if you agree with this.

That over and over these black leaders, these black change makers are expressing that not only are they representing themselves, but they are representing their people, people of color. And a lot of them feel like they say that they only get this one chance that the ability to fail or stumble is frankly a privilege that has not been open to everybody. And over and over, I also hear that there is an absolute commitment to giving back to community in a way that I haven't heard from from other types of folks, right? I'm right, you can hear me being very careful with my language because I am saying here's what I've learned

from interviewing black people, and it feels a little uncomfortable. I don't want you to, but I don't want you to ever feel like you need to be careful on choosing your words, because I think that's the beauty of what the show is about. Me too. And because it is about those moments, faith of discomfort.

And you and I have talked about this so many times. Like, none of us learn from a place of comfort. You don't grow from a place of comfort. You can only grow from that discomfort. But what's important about it is we, over the course of these three seasons, we establish such an incredible relationship that's grounded in trust, as I said before. Like, we give each other that grace. Let's talk a little bit about who you talked to on the show. The episode you sent me

was about Houston White, who is an entrepreneur from Minneapolis, who has this whole vision for a mixed-use residential commercial district in his neighborhood on the north side. What is it about him and his story and the story of the other interviewees on the show that compels you? I want to talk to people that I think have vision and have a story that is inspiring. It's like somebody whose story is so human that there's something in it that everybody can relate to. You mentioned Houston light, and I think about what's so inspiring about Houston in addition to the stories,

this notion of how he wants to bring culture and capacity together, to say true to the authenticity of these neighborhoods and the culture of the neighborhoods. It's unbelievable what he's done with his block in North Minneapolis and it's going to continue to build this community that I think is something that the rest of the country's been on to replicate.

I think that's the stuff that is really fascinating to me as people who just have incredibly human stories that we can all relate to. Faith, was there something specific from Houston's story that resonated with you? Yeah. from Houston's story that resonated with you. Yeah, when Houston was talking about how he began being a business man to quote his favorite Jay-Z lyric, as an 11 year old who would cut hair. And when he started explaining that hair and the line of the hair and what was status and that status was currency and self-respect, and then self-empowerment.

And Houston talks about how barbershops are this place where old black American men could go and feel equal, feel respected. And then Houston talks about how he very purposely puts the board room in the middle of the barber shop. We actually have a clip of this because I really like how he describes this. Here's Houston White on real good talking about his board room table in the middle of his barber shop. Typically, we hide things like this. You know, this is where you, you have to go in a back room to have a board meeting.

But I mean, there was a screen that said, welcome US Bank. And we did a whole presentation, right? When everything was happening in the barbershop, so people could see it, almost like an artistic installation of what really happens at the highest level of business. But we're just going to bring it right and normalize it. And folks are walking in like, what's going on? And then my mom walked in.

Like, yeah, yeah, funny thing. I'm a true story. I'm a true story. And funny part, he, and so he looks at his mom, faith, and says, mama, I made it. I did. Oh.

It was such a surreal moment. My favorite moment of the whole episode with Houston is when he says to you, Greg, thank you for seeing me. Thank you for seeing me and all that's contained in being seen, right? literal investment, but also, but also the investment of support and access and mentorship and a shared vision of the community he can create. Thank you for seeing me. And advocacy, right? I mean, so much of, you know, those of us who have positions in these large corporations,

it's all about what are you doing with your position? What are you doing with the positions of power that you have? And I think that's the challenge for all of us who had professional success and sitting in these halls of power and these corporations. It's what are you doing with it? And for me, if I wasn't supporting people like Houston, those deals wouldn't get done.

If I want advocating for it and sort of pushing people. The only response here is yes. The question is how do we get to yes? And that means we're going to have to do some things differently within our organization. That's when we talk about systems change. It's not just external systems change. It's also inside these walls of power and corporations as well. To hear more stories from Faith and Greg about black and brown entrepreneurship and equity,

subscribe to the Real Good podcast. 99% invisible is executive producer is Delaney Hall. Kurt Colstad is the digital director. The Rosa team includes Emmett Fitzgerald, Vivian Le, Joe Rosenberg, Chris Barupay, Christopher Johnson, Lashma Dawn, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars. We are part of the Stitcher & Serious XM podcast family, now headcored six blocks north in the Pandora building in beautiful Uptown Oakland, California You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook

You can Twitter me at Roman Mars and the show at 99pi orc wrong Instagram and read it too You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love as well as every past episode of 99pi at 99pi dot org love as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99mpi.org. Serious exam.