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By Maria Paphiti*
Cyprus has heightened interest in the field of protection of cultural heritage. This is because it is a country that has witnessed the severe plundering of its own cultural products.
As a result, it has been at the forefront of actively taking action against illicit art trafficking.
Since the 16th century, there are written testimonies that refer to the pillage of Cyprus, a phenomenon that culminated in the 19th century broader trend of “Orientalism” and with the activity of many foreign consuls both before and during the years of the British administration of Cyprus.
Thousands of the island’s most important antiquities left at the time and are kept at present in various museums around the world.
Preeminent was the activity of the American consul Luigi Palma di Cesnola, who smuggled in excess of 35,000 objects, the great bulk of which were sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
In fact, Cesnola’s Cypriot collection was the Met’s first acquisition of Mediterranean antiquities and constituted the core of its archaeological material. Cesnola himself was appointed in 1879 the museum's first director, a position that he held until he died in 1904.
As time went by, voices of reaction from the Cypriot people towards the Ottoman Law, which had been established in 1874, kept rising.
According to that Law, a third of what was found in excavations belonged to the government, a third to the landowner and a third to the excavator.
This, in combination with the poverty of the locals, was most definitely exploited and legitimised all the activity that was taking place by foreigners on the island (and of course it makes all claims – in case we wanted to cast any – impossible).
The very first attempt to establish a law on antiquities was in 1905, but it was not really effective.
Cyprus acquired its first proper Law on Antiquities in 1935, which was amended after the foundation of the Republic, in 1964 and it finally resulted in better management of the country’s antiquities.
And while the conditions seemed promising, the greatest ever disaster in the civilisation of Cyprus struck.
This was the Turkish invasion of 1974, which led to unprecedented destruction of the island's cultural heritage, mainly the religious one.
More precisely, what followed the invasion of Turkey in Cyprus is one of the largest and most systematic looting of a country's heritage since the Second World War.
The Turks did not only allow and cooperate in the smuggling of cultural products but they also intentionally destroyed, in various ways, all 550 churches and monasteries which are located in the occupied northern part of Cyprus.
Some of the churches were turned into mosques, others into animal paddocks, storage for haystacks, some of them became sports clubs, dance schools or have even been incorporated into hotel complexes, and one is known to have been transformed into a mortuary.
Four of them have been converted to icon museums, housing icons of lesser value since the artistically and historically most important pieces have been smuggled.
Due to this extensive looting, Cyprus has maintained a particularly alerted position in matters of cultural heritage.
It not only ratified all major international conventions (such as the 1954 Hague Convention, the 1970 UNESCO and the 1995 UNIDROIT), but it has also been taking initiatives that aim at strengthening the effectiveness of the existing agreements or adding new elements to them.
I will only refer to two of Cyprus’ recent actions.
In 2016 it presented to the 33rd Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, a comprehensive resolution on “Cultural rights and the protection of Cultural heritage”. This resolution, which was unanimously adopted, argued in essence that cultural heritage is a human right.
During its Presidency of the Council of Europe, from November 2016 to May 2017, Cyprus prioritised a previous decision of the Committee of Ministers of the European Council to create a Convention that focuses on ‘Offences Relating to Cultural Property’.
The outcome was the Convention of Nicosia, which practically conveys liability of an artwork’s provenance to the buyer and holds them liable for their own due diligence.
It also promotes national and international co-operation in combatting criminal offences relating to cultural property.
The transnational nature of illicit activities is due to the fact that experienced thieves and smugglers are well aware of the legal differences between countries and seek to exploit gaps or weaknesses in the law to lower their chances of being caught.
My own experiences in repatriating a number of stolen artefacts centred on four repatriations of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art.
My contribution in each case was different and from each one, I was taught a different lesson.
2007: Six icons which came from various churches of the Metropolis of Morphou;
2008: A pair of icons from the church of St. Iakovos in Trikomo;
2018: The mosaic of St. Andrew from the church of Panagia Kanakaria;
2019: The reliquary casket from the church of St. Mamas in Morphou.
* Excerpts from a speech at a conference hosted in London by the High Commissions of Cyprus and Rwanda, on “International dimensions for the protection of cultural heritage and for tackling the illicit trafficking of cultural goods – The Case of Cyprus”
Maria Paphiti is an art historian and private consultant. She has Studied Byzantine Art to El Greco at Courtauld Institute of Art and is a Former Head of Department at Christie's. Since 2007, she has contributed to four repatriations to Cyprus of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art.
Quote box for print only:
“The transnational nature of illicit activities is due to the fact that experienced thieves and smugglers are well aware of the legal differences between countries and seek to exploit gaps or weaknesses in the law to lower their chances of being caught”
Captions:
Located in 2006 and repatriated in 2007: Six icons from the Metropolis of Morphou. They were in possession of the Pankow Foundation and were to be auctioned via Sotheby’s in NY.
Located in 2014 and repatriated in 2018: the mosaic of St. Andrew from the 6th-century church of Panagia Kanakaria in the village of Lythrangomi.
The Turk smuggler Aydin Dikmen presenting the mosaic of St. Andrew © Michel van Rijn
The mosaic of St. Andrew was received in a special ceremony at the Archbishopric in April 2018 in the presence of President Anastasiades, where all who contributed to its repatriation were invested with the highest award of the Church of Cyprus.
