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Plunder and Looting: Some Historical Reminders

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The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime

Abstract

This chapter reviews in a chronological fashion attitudes towards plunder and looting from antiquity to the present day. Its main argument is that contemporary attitudes can be traced to Enlightenment thinking that linked antiquity to notions of nationhood. Heritage became an expression of the collective identity of the community. After World War II, UNESCO sought to protect cultural heritage through conventions and programmes of international co-operation, but recently their efforts have been undermined by non-state actors such as ISIS who have no regard for international law. The chapter concludes that local communities are best placed to act as stewards of heritage and protect against looting but in order for this approach to be successful they have to be engaged in site protection and benefit economically from income derived from the site.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Paul Connerton (1989, 2009), in his twin publications, How Society Remembers and How Modernity Forgets, explores why the past has come to be of such significance to postmodern society.

  2. 2.

    Bahrani (1998) has examined how the West has appropriated and continues to claim control over the heritage of this area through its use of terminology, which links its heritage to development of Western culture and denies its links with the contemporary population of the area.

  3. 3.

    A similar movement developed in the Americas with regard to material taken from Meso-American and South American sites to, predominantly, US museums.

  4. 4.

    The 1964 Venice Charter laid down the principles guiding the preservation and restoration of historic buildings. It was not until 1994 that UNESCO tried to accommodate other traditions through the ‘Nara Document on Authenticity’.

  5. 5.

    One such project is ‘Heritage and Homelessness’ (Kiddey (n.d.), Heritage and Homelessness).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The American University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Valerie Higgins

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  1. Valerie Higgins
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Correspondence to Valerie Higgins .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Saskia Hufnagel

  2. University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Duncan Chappell

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Higgins, V. (2019). Plunder and Looting: Some Historical Reminders. In: Hufnagel, S., Chappell, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook on Art Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54405-6_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54405-6_20

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54404-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54405-6

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