Cambodian Iron Age Jewelry with Human Remains

Cambodian Iron Age Jewelry with Human Remains

In March, 2011, the Cambodian Embassy of Australia in Canberra hosted a poignant hand-back ceremony. Cambodian and Australian government and embassy officials, as well as law enforcement agents and civilian subject-matter experts (including the author, Damien Huffer), were present to witness the return of an especially unique and arguably macabre group of seized cultural heritage items and human remains.

The 30 Iron Age artifacts, made and used as grave goods sometime between c. 500 B.C.E. and 300 C.E., were ripped out of burials in otherwise unrecorded cemeteries somewhere in Cambodia’s northwest. Items recovered included bronze earrings and wrist and leg bangles still containing soil and, in many cases, finger, arm and leg bones still attached.

Melbourne-based antiquities dealer Frank Bottaro, owner of B.C. Galleries, had initially attempted to sell the artifacts on eBay, and then via the gallery's website and online catalog. Bottaro has previously been arrested in Egypt in 2008 for alleged smuggling, and also forfeited Egyptian tomb artifacts to the Australian Federal Police in 2005.

When the Cambodian objects were spotted on eBay, individuals notified the Australian Archaeological Association and World Archaeological Congress, which in turn notified the the Australian Government, which had the artifacts removed from eBay.

“The Australian Archaeological Association alerted the Australian government that the human remains and ornaments were on eBay,” reported Eleanor Dead, the director of public affairs at the Australian Government's Office for the Arts at the time. Simultaneously, Damien Huffer was notified that they were also for sale in the gallery's online catalog. At the time, Huffer was a PhD student and also had begun a blog "It Surfaced Down Under!" that provided context and opinion around antiquities trafficking and sales by galleries in Southern Hemisphere market countries.

This attempted sale garnered the attention of agents of the then-Cultural Property Division of the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, who reached out to Huffer and, later, Prof. Dougald O'Reilly, for background information. Where might they come from? How many individuals were represented by the bones, and of what ages? Can the artifacts be relatively dated? The information provided helped ensure that the items (and the Styrofoam shipping containers they came in) were seized and forfeited without contestation.

Prof. O'Reilly noted after the hand-back ceremony: “[Looting] is still an issue across a lot of parts of Cambodia....Even today we still find that people are looting burial sites.”

While other artifacts from China and the Philippines were seized from Bottaro at the same time, these did not involve human remains, and their seizure was challenged in court. Under the current wording of Australia's Protection of Moveable Cultural Heritage Act 1986, the "burden of proof" is on claimant countries to prove theft, rather than accused dealers to prove legitimate acquisition. The challenge ultimately saw these seized items returned to Bottaro, a key test of the legislation that prompted further calls for reform.

30

Jewelry – bracelets, rings, personal decoration

Human Remains – skeletons, mummies

Iron Age Cambodia

eBay

Cambodia

Damien Huffer

Jason Felch