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: March 11, 2024 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
Stonehenge has been a permanent feature and place-marker on the landscape in Wiltshire for thousands of years. It has also a been a semi-permanent feature of headlines and as a topic on this blog. However this may soon no longer be the case, as Save Stonehenge World Heritage Site (SSWHS) have had their application for […]
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: December 21, 2023 by Alexander Herman
What can be said about art law in 2023? Of course, developments in our sector are often linked to trends in the wider world. This year saw the sad continuation of the war in Ukraine and an unprecedented conflict between Israel and Hamas that erupted after the terrorist attacks of 7 October. Azerbaijan has fully […]
Posted on: September 27, 2023 by Hugh Johnson-Gilbert
Last week the V&A announced that it had reached an agreement with the Republic of Yemen (‘Yemen’) to research and temporarily care for four ancient carved funerary stelae that had been discovered by an archaeology enthusiast in an interior design shop in East London. The museum’s announcement explained that the objects, dated to the second […]
Posted on: September 14, 2023 by Anna Somers Cocks
It is a simple truth that idealistic organisations founded by charismatic individuals, or established in response to extraordinary circumstances, decline the further that time carries them from their Big Bang of fervour and faith. Such a decline is well underway, unfortunately, with the World Heritage Sites, probably the best-known part of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, […]
Posted on: August 14, 2023 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds
The month of July saw two opposing planning decisions being made with one thing in common: their subject and focus being designated heritage assets; Stonehenge and the proposed tunnel within its vicinity and the Marks and Spencer building on Oxford Street, London. Both of them highlight the complexity of dealing with heritage assets within the […]
Posted on: July 17, 2023 by Stephanie Drawdy
In the last several years, the U.S. Army has been raising up a generation of modern-day “scholar warriors” to follow in the pioneering steps of WWII-era Monuments Officers. These warriors are Army Reserve Civil Affairs Soldiers who, like their predecessors, have a range of specialties that they can utilise to advance the mission of defending cultural […]
Posted on: January 9, 2023 by Alexander Herman
It is dangerous to make predictions. Too precise and they can be proved wrong. Too vague and they tend not to offer much of use. So it is a difficult line to tread… What do we have to expect from 2023 in the world of art law? If we consider the big developments from last […]
Posted on: June 10, 2020 by Charlotte Dunn
A UNESCO-backed research project into the illicit trade in cultural property in Germany has recently released its final report. The ‘ILLICID Project’, launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, aimed to increase understanding of illicit trafficking networks and financial flows linked to organised crime and terrorism. However, the findings of the final […]