Detail page - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Wilful destruction and, above all, the illegal trade in antiquities pose a massive threat to the entire cultural heritage of the Middle East. Terrorist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Al-Nusrah Front (ANF) partly finance themselves directly or indirectly through the looting and smuggling of cultural heritage. In this context, the United Nations General Assembly recently adopted a resolution prohibiting the cross-border trafficking of Iraqi and Syrian cultural property if it was illegally removed from Iraq after 6 August 1990 and from Syria after 9 May 2011. This ban only does not apply if it can be proven that the cultural goods were exported from the countries before the aforementioned deadlines.

The aim of #UNITE4HERITAGE is to raise awareness of these crimes. The SPK will address this topic in its online offering as well as in flyers in the museums. In addition, the new SPK magazine, which will be published on 1 July, is dedicated to the worldwide protection of cultural property.

Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK, says: "With our co-operation agreement with UNESCO, we want to work together to raise awareness. No one should be able to claim that they did not know that buying an archaeological object without proof of origin and an export licence, no matter how small a souvenir it is, contributes to the destruction of humanity's cultural heritage. The fewer buyers there are for such illegal activities, the less worthwhile robbery excavations are."

"Museums play a central role in the fight against the destruction, looting and illegal trade in cultural heritage. The Museum of the Ancient Near East in the Pergamon Museum is already a strong partner of UNESCO, and the campaign now planned together with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is a great opportunity to further sensitise the public to the importance of cultural heritage," says UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova.

UNESCO and the SPK are also working together on the ILLICID dark field research project: a co-operation led by Markus Hilgert, Director of the Vorderasiatisches Museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, to research the illegal trade in antiquities, which is supported by UNESCO as a partner. UNESCO is also in close contact with the Syrian DGAM (General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums) in order to strengthen its expertise in dealing with looted excavations and illegal trade. The Museum of Islamic Art of the National Museums in Berlin has also been working with the DGAM and the German Archaeological Institute for three years on documenting Syrian cultural heritage in an online database. In this Syrian Heritage Archive Project, initiated by museum director Stefan Weber and supported by the Federal Foreign Office, Syrian employees are primarily documenting the damage on site (damage assessment); the art market is also being monitored.

Further links

• Press release in English "#UNITE4HERITAGE: Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz works with UNESCO in the fight against illicit traffic of Syrian and Iraqi artefacts - New SPK Magazine specially devoted to this topic" (26.06.2015) (PDF document, 53 KB, not barrier-free)
• Protection of cultural artefacts
• Press release "Project ILLICID investigates illegal trade in cultural property in Germany" (10.04.2015)
• UNESCO campaign #Unite4Heritage