This blog, by 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Media Relations Intern Hayley Morris, is partly taken from TheArtNewspaper story .
An agreement between Turkey and the United States to combat the illicit trade in antiquities and other cultural property has divided historians and preservationists over whether the accord will curb smuggling or undermine minority heritage that faces neglect, or worse.
, a professor of art and architecture at the University of California, Davis, will speak on such issues at a this week. , U.N. Special Rapporteur in the field of Cultural Rights and professor of law, 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis School of Law, will join her on the panel. 鈥淭he Recent Developments in the Protection of Cultural Heritage,鈥 will be held online Feb. 18 at 9:30 a.m.
A signed last month imposes U.S. import restrictions on archaeological objects 250 years or older that the Turkish government has not licenced to leave the country. The aim is 鈥渢o reduce the incentive for pillage of irreplaceable archaeological and ethnological material representing Turkey鈥檚 cultural heritage,鈥 according to the agreement, which becomes binding once the governments notify each other that their procedures for enforcement are ready.
The agreement intends to combat the circulation of antiquities, expand cultural exchanges between the two countries, which could encourage more traveling exhibitions or long-term loans between US and Turkish museums, and eases challenges for American archaeologists who face bureaucratic hurdles in leading excavations.
Still, the history of Armenians, victims of a by Ottoman Turks during the First World War, is especially bitter in a country that still denies that the massacres amounted to genocide. Erasure of Armenian culture continues to this day: In recent weeks, a church was and another was .
Heghnar Watenpaugh said in the story that she worries that the pact may be a form of 鈥渁rtwashing鈥 to deflect attention from the harm that Turkey鈥檚 cultural policies have inflicted on sites like Ani, the former seat of an Armenian kingdom where work to rescue collapsing medieval monuments and defaced church art has moved at a glacial pace despite its .
鈥淚f this agreement indicates that the Turkish state is now upholding its international commitments to cultural heritage, that would be welcome. But we still have to ask questions about the diversity [of heritage] when a state is unable to utter the words 鈥楢rmenian鈥 or 鈥楰urdish鈥 when talking about its culture. It is a question of trust, given the non-acknowledgement of the past.鈥 鈥 Watenpaugh, on the pact between the U.S. and Turkey
Book documents journey of illuminated manuscripts
Watenpaugh鈥檚 2019 book, s, documented the journey of a portion of a 13th-century illuminated manuscript to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and efforts by the Armenian Church to recover it. Protected for centuries in a remote church, the holy manuscript had followed the waves of displaced people exterminated during the Armenian genocide. Decades later, the manuscript found its way to the Republic of Armenia, while its missing eight pages came to the Getty. In 2010, the Armenian Church sued for the return of eight pages from the Zeytun Gospels. It was settled that the Getty would keep the manuscript whilst acknowledging that the church has always been the rightful owner of the pages.
Watenpaugh follows in the manuscript's footsteps through seven centuries and captures the human costs of war, making the case for a human right to art. Her documentation reveals the intricacies involved in navigating the history of historical genocide and cultural heritage.