Oscar White Muscarella

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Oscar White Muscarella

Oscar White Muscarella (* 1931 in New York ) is an American Near Eastern archaeologist and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art . His specialty is the art and archeology of the ancient Middle East, in which he is now considered “one of the world's best experts”. He became internationally known as a critic of the trade in antique art objects. Muscarella is a tireless opponent of robbery excavations and is now recognized as the "conscience of the industry".

biography

Oscar White Muscarella was forced to live in orphanages until he was ten years old. Then he was adopted by Sam Muscarella, his mother's second husband. According to him, he learned during this time never to give up and stand up for his convictions. In 1949 he graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City and then studied as an undergraduate at the City College of New York (CCNY). To study classical archeology , he went to the best American university at the time, the University of Pennsylvania , which was also one of the three best universities in the world in the subject. After completing his master’s degree, he won a Fulbright scholarship from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens . Back in the United States, he took part in excavations in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and on Swan Creek in South Dakota. In the late 1950s, this was followed by excavations in the former Phrygian capital Gordion near Ankara. Then he led or participated in excavations in Turkey at Alışar Höyük , Ayanıs and Çadır Höyük ; in Iran, he participated in excavation campaigns in Hasanlu , Agrab Tepe , Sé Girdan and elsewhere.

In 1965 Muscarella received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania with a study on Phrygian fibulae . He has been with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1965, today as a Senior Research Fellow. Muscarella limited his engagement and interest not only to technical questions, but also advocated equal pay for the female employees in the museum, who received less wages for the same work. Together with young colleagues, he founded the “Curators Forum”, a union-like lobby group that was viewed by the museum administration as a serious challenge. What weighed heaviest, however, were his repeated memoranda, which he wrote to the museum administration in 1970, 1971 and 1972 in order to induce them to change their antiques buying practice - the museum acquired looted and smuggled objects.

Thereupon he received a dismissal from the director of the Museum Thomas Hoving in July 1972, the reason being that he was accused of social incompetence towards colleagues. Muscarella successfully sued for reinstatement. In August 1973 he was fired again on a similar basis. However, since the "American National Labor Relations" investigated his and other dismissal cases for union activities, he was able to stay in the museum because of this legal support. Muscarella received his third resignation in October 1974, this time the allegations comprised three and a half pages. This time his lawyer waived his fee. An arbitration attorney accepted by both parties was appointed to investigate the case. After twelve days of hearing and four months of work, he wrote an expert opinion of over 1,300 pages, which exonerated Muscarella on all points. However, he was only able to return to work in the museum in May 1977 and has not received a raise since then. Hoving's successor Philippe de Montebello had also forbidden him and the staff to give interviews without authorization, but he still does not follow his instructions.

Fight against the antique trade

For him, the greatest danger to archeology comes from the purchase of ancient cultural assets by wealthy collectors and museums. The desire to acquire ancient art treasures first creates a financial incentive. Large parts of cultural history have been destroyed worldwide as a result. Since the mostly poor robber graves are only interested in a few, well-preserved objects, the archaeologically significant find context is irretrievably destroyed.

In particular, he accuses the New York Times of partiality in those ancient art objects in the Metropolitan Museum, which are considered the results of illegal excavations. A well-known example is a vase by Euphronios , the so-called "Euphronios crater ", for which the Italian state had been litigating for several years. It was acquired in 1972 at the special request of the then NYT publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger . Sulzberger was a member of the “Board of Trustees” of the Metropolitan Museum for several decades, where he was responsible for the “acquisition committee”. Muscarella was the only employee of the Met to criticize the purchase and was fired for it. In contrast, the Metropolitan Museum received support in its acquisition policy from the Board of Trustees members such as the former Treasury Secretary. D. C. Douglas Dillon , retired Secretary of State D. Henry Kissinger and by the two New York City Mayors John Lindsay and Michael Bloomberg .

After all, Muscarella accuses the museums of having developed a “forgery culture”. Professors, curators, scientists, museum employees and managers, dealers, smugglers, auctioneers, collectors and forgers worked hand in hand, which sometimes knowingly displays counterfeit objects and these donations can also be deducted from tax. He claims in his monograph «The Lie Became Great. The forgery of ancient near eastern cultures » that

  • 40 percent of all objects checked by the "Oxford Thermoluminescence Laboratory" turned out to be counterfeit,
  • half of all antique art objects that are auctioned at Sotheby’s are counterfeit,
  • Every year around 25,000 forgeries of ancient art come onto the market.

Quotes

“ For archeology, however , Muscarella's outlaw status is a godsend. He can say what post-hungry or more unscrupulous colleagues do not want to say: Most of the ancient objects that are bought by Western museums today, exhibited as loans or donations, neither come from old collections nor have they been excavated by archaeologists. It is looted property that was dug up by locals or organized gangs. "

- Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 3, 2003

“ It is an intertwining of money and power. Around 200 people worldwide, the greatest collectors and the most important curators, are engaged in the destruction of the early history of mankind. And much of that destruction is being funded by the taxpayer. "

- Oscar W. Muscarella, September 3, 2003

" Their [Italy's] whole culture, their whole history is being destroyed by the Houghtons, Sulzbergers, Le Comte Philippe [de Montebello], the Shelby Whites and the whole board of trustees of the Met, including the mayor of New York City. "

- Oscar W. Muscarella, December 25, 2005

“ Especially the university museums in Harvard, Princeton, Missouri, Indiana are decisive robbers and destroyers of world history. […] There is no difference between collectors and museums: both commit the same cultural crime. In my book "The Lie Became Great" I discuss collectors as perverts who buy to show their absolute, unlimited power and wealth to friends over a cocktail in their living room. I compare her activities to a rape, the rape of Mother Earth. "

- Oscar W. Muscarella, January 29, 2006

Fonts (selection)

  • Phrygian fibulae from Gordion (= Colt Archaeological Institute. Monograph Series. Vol. 4, ZDB -ID 845784-0 ). Quaritch, London 1967 (Philadelphia PA, University of Pennsylvania, dissertation, 1965).
  • The tumuli at Sé Girdan. Second report. In: Metropolitan Museum Journal. Vol. 4, 1971, ISSN  0077-8958 , pp. 5-28.
  • as editor: Ancient art. The Norbert Schimmel collection. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1974.
  • The Archaeological Evidence for Relations Between Greece and Iran in the First Millennium BC In: The Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 9, 1977, ISSN  0010-2016 , pp. 31-57, digitized version (PDF; 3.23 MB ) .
  • Unexcavated Objects and Ancient Near Eastern Art. In: Louis D. Levine, T. Cuyler Young (Eds.): Mountains and Lowlands. Essays in the Archeology of Greater Mesopotamia (= Bibliotheca Mesopotamica. Vol. 7). Undena Publications, Malibu CA 1977, ISBN 0-89003-052-9 , pp. 153-207.
  • "Ziwiye" and Ziwiye. The Forgery of a Provenience. In: Journal of Field Archeology. Vol. 4, No. 2, 1977, ISSN  0093-4690 , pp. 197-219.
  • Urartian bells and Samos. In: The Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University. Vol. 10, 1978, pp. 61-72, digitized version (PDF; 1.28 MB) .
  • Unexcavated objects and ancient near eastern art. Addenda (= Monographic Journals of the Near East. Occasional Papers. Vol. 1, 1). Undena Publications, Malibu CA 1979, ISBN 0-89003-043-X .
  • The catalog of ivories from Hasanlu, Iran (= Hasanlu Special Studies. Vol. 2 = University of Pennsylvania. University Museum. University Museum Monograph. 40). University of Pennsylvania - University Museum, Philadelphia PA 1980, ISBN 0-934718-33-4 .
  • as editor: Ladders to Heaven. Art treasures from lands of the Bible. A catalog of some of the objects in the collection presented by Dr. Elie Borowski to the Lands of the Bible Archeology Foundation and displayed in the exhibition "Ladders to Heaven: Our Judeo-Christian heritage 500 BC - AD 500", held at the Royal Ontario Museum, June 23 - Oct. 28, 1979. McClelland and Stewart, Toronto 1981, ISBN 0-7710-6662-7 .
  • Surkh Dum at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A mini-report. In: Journal of Field Archeology. Vol. 8, No. 3, 1981, pp. 327-359.
  • Bronze and iron. Ancient Near Eastern artifacts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY 1988, ISBN 0-87099-525-1 .
  • as editor: Phrygian Art and Archeology (= Source. Notes in the History of Art. Vol. 7, No. 3/4 = Special Issue, ISSN  0737-4453 ). NY Ars Brevis Foundation, New York NY 1988.
  • The Background to the Luristan Bronzes. In: John Curtis (Ed.): Bronzeworking Centers of Western Asia. 1000-539 BC Kegan Paul, London et al. 1988, ISBN 0-7103-0274-6 , pp. 177-192.
  • The lie became great. The forgery of ancient near eastern cultures (= Studies in the Art and Archeology of Antiquity. Vol. 1). Groningen, Styx 2000, ISBN 90-5693-041-9 .
  • Bronzes of Luristan. In: Encyclopedia Iranica . 2004, pp. 478-483.
  • Jiroft and "Jiroft-Aratta": A Review Article of Yousef Madjidzadeh, Jiroft: The Earliest Oriental Civilization. In: Bulletin of the Asia Institute. Vol. 15, 2005, ISSN  0890-4464 , pp. 173-198, online (PDF; 480 kB) .

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c Museums destroy the history of our earth. In: Welt am Sonntag , January 29, 2006.
  2. ↑ Suzan Mazur: No Ransom - Part II. In: Scoop , February 9, 2006.
  3. ↑ James Gardner: Met Fakes Unearthed? ( September 30, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive ) In: New York Post , February 1, 2001.
  4. ^ A b c Peter Watson , Cecilia Todeschini: The Medici Conspiracy. The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities. From Italy's Tomb Raiders to the World's Greatest Museums. PublicAffairs, New York NY 2006, ISBN 1-586-48402-8 , pp. Xviii.
  5. ↑ a b c d Suzan Mazur: Antiquities Whistleblower Oscar White Muscarella. In: Scoop , December 25, 2005; with e-mail quotation from de Montebello.
  6. ↑ a b Fakes and faking ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk
  7. ↑ a b Jörg Häntzschel: Archeology of the bulldozer. Collectors and museums in the west finance the destruction of the ancient world. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 3, 2003.

Interviews on the art trade

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Muscarella, Oscar White
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American archaeologist and curator from the Middle East
DATE OF BIRTH 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH new York