Parzinger on cultural heritage law: illegal trade no longer a trivial offense
News from 08/02/2017
One year ago, the Act to Amend the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property came into force. The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz draws a positive conclusion.
The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) considers the developments following the amendment of Germany's Act on the Protection of Cultural Property, which entered into force one year ago, to be generally positive. The new law introduced a ban on the import of antiquities that lack an official export permit from the country of origin – a measure that international experts have been demanding for decades.
Hermann Parzinger, the President of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz remarks: "The illegal trade in cultural property is a global problem. We must work towards achieving recognition of the value of cultural assets as well as their social and cultural role."
Markus Hilgert, the Director of the Vorderasiatisches Museum (Museum of the Ancient Near East), points to stricter due diligence requirements for commercial players, who are now obliged to demonstrate that cultural property offered for sale has been imported lawfully. Hilgert is also the coordinator of the joint project ILLICID, which tests methods of researching the hidden or ‘dark’ areas of the illicit traffic in cultural property. "Among the things we have observed," he says, "is that archaeological objects from the eastern Mediterranean area are being offered to buyers in Germany on a large scale, including numerous objects from Iraq and Syria."