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London Arqueologist doubts validity of claim by French authorities concerning supposed shipment of Taino contraband artefacts

Takaji My Relatives
The news (recently reported by the UCTP and Taino Boricua News) is hitting the Taino community concerning a valuable shipment of authentic Taino artefacts which was discovered and confiscated by French authorities. The discovery of this illegal exportation of relics was reported to the Dominican authorities in Paris with the ultimate intention of repatriating the items back to Kiskeya. The genuine articles were sent to France to be sold by a French antiquities dealer mixed in with a shipment of contemporary replicas. They were identified by the exporter as "replicas". I assume that this was an attempt to hide the real artefacts among the fake ones to get them to an intended buyer in France.

I first became aware of this issue yesterday when it was reported in the Cuban archeology news list "CUBA ALQUEOLOGICA" of which I am a subscriber. The post in that list, which of course was in Spanish, included an image of a black three-pointer cemi marked with a red sticker.



I was a bit disturbed when almost immediately a scholar associated with the Institute of Archeology of London called Dr Jose R. Oliver posted what appeared to me to be a rather impassioned and almost unprofessional response to the article. Dr. Oliver's post was evidently a response to the image associated with the article."Caballeros/Damas… una verdadera locura, pues se ve a millas, incluso con esta pequeña foto que este ‘trigonolito’ es una falsificación, y además está muy mal hecho (¡feo como el solo!). Es de las piezas que he visto que venden a los turistas en el Santo Domingo colonial… a los turistas más tontos los venden como piezas tainas; pero a lo “agusaos” ni lo intentan. Tanta bulla para nada, excepto por la mala intención de sacar materiales del pais-hubiera igualmente haber podido ser un artefacto genuino. Acá en Londres yo mantengo ojos abiertos pues aquí es uno de los centros (como Nueva York) donde mas piezas de “estraperlo” se venden en Christies y otras firmas que venden arte (aun recuerdo cuando piezas de oro de Malagana, Colombia, empezaron a llegar)."

I do not pretend to be more capable than this expert in the identification of fakes. It is very possible that this particular piece may well be a badly made relica as he claims. However, I think that it would have been more prudent for him to have waited until an opportunity to inspect the whole shipment before labling the whole article as "tanta bulla". He is claiming tat this is just an alarmist announcemen concerning a shipment of relicas. It is entirely possible that the piece chosen to illustrate the article was mistakenly used as representing the genuine pieces and yet there may very well have been genuine pieces in the shipment that were not shown in this particular article and he did not have the opportunity to see them but were judged by the French experts to be real.

Again, I do not claim to be more knowledgable than Dr Oliver but I think that common sense dictates he would reserve his opinion on the genuiness of the shipment as a whole until he had a chance to inspect all of the pieces instead of making a sudden and rash comment based on just a photo of one piece. After all. there are archeological experts in France also and it seems to me that they would have been able to spot fakes just as easily as Dr Oliver claims.

If, in fact, the shipment confiscated this week did include a number of genuine Taino pieces, it is important for us Tainos to commend French authorities for their dilligence in identifying the real pieces and alerting the Dominican government so that they can be shipped back to the homeland where they belong. And if Dr Oliver is a Dominican (as I suspect he is) it would seem to me that he should applaud the dilligence of the French authorities instead of ridiculing them as if they were ignorant "tourists" who were fooled by cheap imitations. To be frank, I really don't care if this archeologist is right and the whole shipment turns out to be a bunch of fakes. I'm glad that the French are looking carefully and trying to thwart the illegal trade in our ancient heritage.
Below is a copy of the original article as it appeared in the CUBA ARQUEOLOGICA list:
Incautan pieza taína de medio millón de euros
Javier Valdivia - 2/22/2010
UN EQUIPO DE EXPERTOS DEL DEPARTAMENTO DE PREHISTORIA DEL MUSEO DE HISTORIA NATURAL DE PARÍS DETERMINÓ QUE EL OBJETO EN CUESTIÓN ES AUTÉNTICO
Pieza. Un trigonolito taíno de los decomisados en Francia es visto en esta fotografía tomada en el Museo de Historia Natural de París. Sin embargo, éste no es el valorado en medio millón de euros.

Santo Domingo.- Las autoridades francesas tienen en su poder una pieza taína valorada entre medio millón y un millón de euros que fue confiscada a mediados del año pasado junto a otros restos arqueológicos enviados a París para ser vendidos a una casa de antigüedades como artesanía moderna.

La pieza fue despachada desde República Dominicana el 3 de abril del año pasado a nombre de la empresa exportadora Hicotea Club S.A., de Las Galeras, Samaná, con destino a Simurg Antiquités, en París, Francia, y decomisada por el Servicio de Aduanas francés en una de cuatro cajas que en total contenían 200 objetos con un peso total de 50 kilos.

Documento
La información está contenida en un documento consignado al Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores dominicano, al cual tuvo acceso LISTÍN DIARIO, que explica el procedimiento que siguieron las autoridades francesas, desde el decomiso de las piezas hasta la evaluación de su autenticidad y el reporte a la representación dominicana ante la Organización de Naciones Unidas para la Educación, la Ciencia y la Cultura (Unesco), con sede en París.

El informe no precisa qué objeto es el más preciado, aunque sí señala que entre las piezas se encuentran cuatro trigonolitos, espátulas, una cabeza macorix, hachas petaloides y varios cemíes taínos.

Según el francés Jean Michel Montespan, un experto en arqueología y arte precolombino consultado anteriormente por LISTÍN DIARIO, un trigonolito (piedra de forma triangular con tres rostros) puede costar entre 8,000 y 80,000 euros; un cemí original (ídolo, por lo general de piedra tallada) entre 50,000 y 250,000 euros, y un dúho de madera (una suerte de pequeño asiento ceremonial), hasta medio millón de euros, todo dependiendo de su estado de conservación.

Casa inexistente
Según el documento en poder de la Cancillería, el cargamento iba a ser vendido a Simurg Antiquités por un valor de 4,480 dólares. Las autoridades francesas procedieron a su incautación al percatarse que la casa de antigüedades no existe.

Los objetos fueron enviados al Museo de Historia Natural de París donde un equipo del Departamento de Prehistoria determinó que 34 piezas eran auténticas, que pertenecían a la cultura taína y que al menos una de ellas podría costar en el mercado del arte antiguo entre medio millón y un millón de euros.

Posteriormente, el Tribunal de Gran Instancia de Bobigny, una comuna al noreste de París, abrió una investigación preliminar y luego encargó el caso a la Corte Nacional de Aduanas. En noviembre del año pasado, la representación dominicana en la Unesco fue contactada por Valentin Payraud, inspector judicial del Servicio Nacional de Aduanas francés, quien la puso al tanto del procedimiento.

La Cancillería dominicana maneja el expediente desde diciembre del año pasado.

Lo que procede ahora es que las autoridades locales contacten a las francesas para proceder a la repatriación de los objetos.

El país ya ha recuperado en el pasado varias piezas arqueológicas que debieron haber salido de contrabando.

En el 2004 y 2005, el Museo del Hombre Dominicano realizó la documentación y dio los pasos legales para la recuperación de 85 piezas el primer año, y de otras quince el segundo.

Anteriormente, en 1993, el MHD recuperó una vasija antropomorfa de hueso de manatí en Estados Unidos, y en 1996 tres vasijas antropomorfas, también en ese país.

(+)
¿QUÉ SEÑALAN LAS LEYES EN EL PAÍS?

En República Dominicana la Constitución establece que “toda la riqueza artística e histórica del país, sea quien fuere su dueño, formará parte del patrimonio cultural de la Nación y estará bajo la salvaguarda del Estado.

La ley establecerá cuando sea oportuno para su conservación y defensa”.

El párrafo I, del artículo 47, de la Ley 41-00, señala: “La salida del país de cualquier bien mueble que se considere como integrante de patrimonio cultural de la nación, requerirá del permiso previo de la Secretaría de Estado de Cultura. En caso de exportación o sustracción ilegal, el bien será decomisado y entregado a la Secretaría de Estado de Cultura”.

Fuente: http://www.listindiario.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=132427

Taino Ti
Miguel

Views: 273

Replies to This Discussion

Tau ti Beike,I completely agree,and anyone with any common sense can see the inadequacy of the conclusion reached by Dr.Oliver.....in spite of what to me looks/sounds like avoidance/distraction tactics-name calling,"tourists",and terms like,"tanta bulla"!!-(means,so much noise,refering to the concern over genuine articles present with the fakes)-NOT ONLY THAT!!!-PLEASE note that he calls the CEMI ITself,"FEO COMO EL SOLO"!!-can anyone here,or elsewhere BELIEVE this!! How DARE he say that this about our ancestors art?!!-and that comment has NOTHING to do with the problem at hand-once AGAIN,another Distraction/diversion tactic-not only that,but in hypnosis that would be called a"PRE-SUPPOSITION",specifically desighned to DE-VALUE something,in order to make the reader or listener INCLINED to side with the name-caller-preying on the human deisre to be in agreement with each other,and one term is "rapport",to gain rapport with the client(or victim). This is enrageing...it's probably a matter of"interest"-somebody's getting paid!!
I frankly dont know whats wrong with this guy. At first I wondered if he has some bone to pick with the French archeologists. He must think that he is better than them. I agree with you that aspects of his behavior could make interesting psychoanalysis.
Taino Ti
Miguel
Oh and by the way, Even if the black three-pointer cemi pictured in the original report is a fake crafted by modern-day artisans in Kiskeya, what makes Dr Oliver think that its badly made or ugly? Who is he to comment on or judge the esthetics of contemporary Taino art?
EXACTLY! ..and it looks like a LOT of our art!...so his opinion then,judging by this example,would extend to many ,dare I say MOST of Indigenous art forms!-(North,Central and South America and Africa,parts of Asia,and Austrailia as well) If it was"badly made",it still looks like our art-very much so,I happen to like it quite a bit! He didn't sound like he was commenting on a bad reproduction,he said,"feo como el solo"-an opinion he'd have to most of our art in that case. Taino ti
The plot thickens!

For well over a year now I have been harassed by a French antiquities dealer who first tried to sell me Taino artifacts without doing any research into what I was all about. I took all his emails, his IP, names, etc...and then proceeded to expose the people online. Needless to say, threats of all sorts followed, and this story continues. Here are some links -- this may be the same group of people (after all, just how many people in France specialize in selling Taino artifacts?):

http://cacreview.blogspot.com/2008/08/for-sale-stolen-taino-artifac...

http://onewatchman.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/indiana-jones-revenge-s...

http://zeroanthropology.net/2008/08/11/indiana-jones-revenge-stolen...

Some comments I deleted, which was the wrong thing to do (they were abusive and threatening), seeing that this is getting more attention. Note the comments in each post. I actually had more copies of my article online, with more comments, from the same people.

Their arguments have "evolved":

1. First it was, "we excavated them" and "they are authentic"
2. Then, "we bought them in the DR."
3. Then, "some are from the DR, but we mostly bought them from elsewhere."
4. Then, "we should sue you for defamation" (I BEGGED them to do so, repeatedly)
5. Then, "we know who you are and where you live, we come to Montreal frequently"
6. Now, "they are all fakes, so we stole nothing!"
Bo Matun Max
Your response, coming from a scholar who deals with the problem of illicit trade in Taino antiquities proves my point. There is obviously illegal traffic of ancient Taino artifacts in France, so I am justified in my criticism of Dr Oliver's sarcastic put-down of French customs officials and French archeological authorities, and now you are adding the extra fun factor of thinly veiled threats! Obviously these guys that are contacting you are potentially dangerous. Not only are they violating our ancient heritage, but they are also not above threatening a courageous archeologist with scruples like yourself. And Dr. Oliver has nothing better to do than ridicule French authorities!
Taino Ti brother and thanks for being part of our world.
Miguel

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