Posted on: July 8, 2019 by Emily Gould
A fascinating day was enjoyed by all who braved London’s hottest day so far this year to attend IAL’s latest Study Forum held on 29th June. Topics ranged from the origins of modern copyright law to international laws on restitution to the treatment of human remains. Dr Elena Cooper (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, CREATe) gave a […]
Posted on: May 21, 2019 by Julia Rodrigues Casella Hommes
The brand new issue of IAL’s Art Antiquity & Law quarterly journal is hot off the press and is now available in print and online via the Hein portal. This year’s first issue brings an array of articles, conference reports and a book review. Maja Dehouck discusses the regulation of illicit trafficking of cultural property […]
Posted on: May 3, 2019 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
It is fitting that, following Geoffrey Bennett’s last post on the Treasure Act consultations in the UK, this piece would also touch on a topic close to our hearts: the law of treasure. For four men in England last month the dream of finding treasure became a reality. While partaking in a four day long […]
Posted on: March 27, 2019 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
Searching for treasure and discovering new archaeological sites like Indiana Jones is every child’s dream. And this is exactly what Cadbury’s latest Freddo campaign sought to do. The relevant webpage listed a series of known archaeological sites in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland where “treasure is fair game”, and encouraged children to […]
Posted on: March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
Laws and guidance notes are rarely retrospective as this would go against fairness and justice. As regards laws such as the Treasure Act 1996 and guidance notes dealing with human remains and archaeological excavation, however, many archaeologists, Anglo-Saxon specialists and museum curators probably wish that they could be. Hansons Auctioneers recently announced it would be […]
Posted on: December 23, 2018 by Alexander Herman
In 1897, British troops marched on Benin City, capital of the fabled West African kingdom of Benin, ruled over by a powerful Oba. The attack was called a ‘punitive expedition’ because it was a retaliatory response to the Oba having massacred a British delegation of eight officials, two traders and local escorts the previous month. […]
Posted on: September 26, 2018 by Holly Woodhouse
Hedge funds are competing with a consortium of British museums to purchase 5,500 artefacts salvaged from the Titanic, which sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912 with the loss of 1,500 lives. The current owner of the artefacts, Premier Exhibitions, is selling them after filing for bankruptcy in the United States in 2016. The […]
Posted on: July 10, 2018 by Lucie Lambrecht and Zacharias Mawick
In 2017, according to an article appearing in The Mirror, Tottenham Hotspur footballer and Belgian World Cup team member, Mousa Dembélé, discovered archaeological objects of significant financial and archaeological value in the cellar of a historic building in the Flemish city of Antwerp. The footballer bought the 700-year-old listed building to open a luxury hotel, […]
Posted on: May 5, 2018 by Paul Stevenson
Last Friday, the UN cultural agency UNESCO called on Colombia not to exploit commercially the three centuries’ old wreck of the Spanish galleon, San Jose, hailed by some as “the holy grail of shipwrecks”. Reports suggest that the San Jose contains a cargo worth billions of dollars. Colombian authorities reportedly intend to recover the San […]
Posted on: February 9, 2018 by Alexander Herman
The story begins 150 years ago. In 1868, deep in the deserts of east Africa, a British expedition led by General Robert Napier, was attacking the capital of the Abyssinian Empire, Maqdala, ruled over by King Tewodros. The British were looking to teach Tewodros a lesson for having imprisoned a number of British envoys and […]