Posted on: November 4, 2024 by Paul Stevenson
This year I’ve written about the Colombian government’s planned recovery of artefacts from the wreck of the San José, hailed as “the most valuable shipwreck in the world”. As an international investor-state arbitration proceeds in the Hague, the wreck continues to make headlines. Reports earlier in the summer indicated that the first robotic exploration of […]
Posted on: July 1, 2024 by Paul Stevenson
Earlier this year, I noted reports that the Colombian government planned to seek to recover artefacts from the wreck of the San José, lost in 1708 with nearly 600 souls and now lying approximately 16 miles off the city of Cartagena. Further reports at the end of last month suggest that the Colombian government has […]
Posted on: January 8, 2024 by Paul Stevenson
Readers will doubtless recall fictional archaeologist explorer Indiana Jones’ quest to find the holy grail, a cup providing eternal youth or sustenance in infinite abundance and, by analogy, an elusive object or goal of great significance. Readers may also recall that some time ago on this blog (2018 indeed) I noted that UNESCO had weighed […]
Posted on: May 9, 2023 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
Any mention of a shipwreck being found immediately conjures up the wildest possible imaginings in most people’s minds – treasure chests full of gold, pearl necklaces, stone studded jewels and other magnificent objects. Alongside the treasure, our imaginations are also filled with scenes of uninhabited islands in the Caribbean with white sand, turquoise water and […]
Posted on: April 14, 2023 by Geoffrey Bennett
One might say that if the law of Treasure has slumbered throughout most of its long history it has now had a rude awakening. Its obscure origins in Anglo-Norman common law had nothing to do with preserving items of cultural interest and probably everything to do with a source of revenue for the Crown, albeit […]
Posted on: January 5, 2021 by Alexander Herman
If 2020 taught us anything it’s that making predictions is a futile – perhaps perilous – exercise. Looking back at our predictions for 2020 from last January only confirms this. Who would have thought that a global pandemic would tear through the fabric of our cozy existence, all the while upsetting a number of accepted […]
Posted on: December 11, 2020 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
On Friday 2nd December 2020 it is likely that many archaeologists, curators and metal detectorists woke up pleased at the announcement from the Government that the definition of treasure for the Treasure Act 1996 will be revised. However, it is also equally probable that the same number were perplexed and worried as to how this […]
Posted on: February 25, 2020 by Paul Stevenson
Media reports this month claim that almost four centuries after the ill-fated galleon Nuestra Señora del Juncal (“the Juncal”), a Spanish naval vessel, sank off the Mexican coast in a storm in October 1631, researchers from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History and Spain’s National Museum of Underwater Archaeology are to undertake a 10-day […]
Posted on: January 16, 2020 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
As we leave behind the festive season, the latest issue of Art Antiquity & Law has just been released in time for you to start the new year with the latest in-depth analyses from the world of art and cultural heritage law. Adam Jomeen writes about street photography and compares the legal treatments afforded to […]
Posted on: November 26, 2019 by Emily Gould
It has been a tumultuous fortnight in Europe in the world of art crime. First, we heard about the audacious attempt to steal two Rembrandts from London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery – thankfully unsuccessful with the perpetrators being apprehended and the paintings recovered within the grounds of the gallery. Then, yesterday, news broke of a heist […]