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Operation Antiquity was a criminal investigation by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies toinvestigate the smuggling of ancient artifacts from Southeast Asia, the majority coming from
Thailand and many from Ban Chiang culture sites. The investigation began in 2002 and
concluded officially in 2014. After several years of quiet development and undercover work, the
case was made public on January 24, 2008 when 500 federal law enforcement officers raided
several museums and antiquities dealers in California and one in Illinois. Joyce White was the
expert witness for the case and authenticated tens of thousands of seized objects.
The case examined coordinated efforts from individuals who smuggled artifacts from Southeast
Asia to the United States, the collectors who purchased them, as well as several museums that
accessioned donations of suspect origination often for tax write-offs for the donors. The case
later facilitated the repatriation of some artifacts to Thailand and led to higher standards of US
museum acquisitions with regard to ancient cultural property.
For the first time, a quantification of the archaeological damage caused by the case is being
released in an article by White and colleagues in the Journal of the Siam Society this month. On
12 November at 5.30 PM at SEA Junction, White will recount her experiences working with law
enforcement and explain the quantification methods stipulated by US culture property law to
estimate the massive damage to the Thai archaeological record in monetary terms. The
quantification calculated “archaeological values” in terms of what knowledge and information
scientific archaeology would have yielded had excavations had been undertaken at the scale
indicated by the seized materials. The scientific excavations at Ban Chiang by the University of
Pennsylvania Museum and the Fine Arts Department of Thailand provided the key data for
calculating the archaeological values.
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Event venue
SEA-Junction, Suite 407-8 BACC, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 939 Rama 1 Rd, Pathum Wan, Bangkok, Thailand
Tickets
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