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trade in smuggled artifacts and have been largely unable to stop it. But
now, a high-profile investigation in Italy has exposed how a network of
prestigious museums, wealthy collectors, and tony auction houses have for
years turned a blind eye to the illicit practices of the dealers who supply
them with archaeological treasures and ancient art. Standing trial in a
Roman courtroom, the 87-year-old Hecht, along with Marion True, the former
antiquities curator for Los Angeles's J. Paul Getty Museum, are charged with
conspiring to trade in and receive stolen antiquities, specifically 42 items
acquired by the Getty. Both have proclaimed their innocence.

The case, which has chilled the antiquities market, raises anew the question
of who owns history. Over the centuries, the detritus of Egyptian, Greek,
and Roman civilizations has steadily found its way into the great museums of
the West. Frustrated after decades of losses, countries finally got a weapon
in 1970 with a UNESCO treaty banning the illicit trade of cultural property.
But the market, fueled by the high prices willingly paid by wealthy
collectors and richly endowed museums, continued to grow. Countries of
origin regularly protested but often lacked evidence to prove their claims.
The Italian investigation has emboldened them, as have new probes in Greece
and Egypt and the ongoing efforts to return art stolen by the Nazis.
Rightful home. Already, legal and public pressures are having an effect. The
Getty has returned to Italy three suspect items and is discussing with Italy
and Greece the fate of several others. The Met has agreed to return to Italy
21 artifacts--including the Euphronios krater--in exchange for long-term
loans of other valuable items. "We're in the queer situation where the
museums are returning everything, which in a sense means they accept it's
looted," says Watson, coauthor of The Medici Conspiracy, excerpted in this
issue. As foreign authorities continue their probes, many more repatriations
are likely.

Tomb raiders can do irreparable damage to archaeologically significant
sites, robbing them of not only their art but their context. "There's been
an immense loss of knowledge," says Chippindale, "because a lot of
archaeological information comes not from the object but where it was
found." The nighttime excavations of the tombaroli are indeed crude: One
enterprising Swiss dealer gave raiders chain saws to more quickly cut out
frescoes. Collectors and curators argue that buying unprovenanced
antiquities preserves many objects that would otherwise be lost forever. But
Kathryn Tubb, an archaeologist at University College London, argues: "It's
still handling stolen material. All the other arguments may have some
validity, but they don't get over that fact." Legitimate buyers also create
a huge black market for the tombaroli. Estimates on the size of the trade
vary from $100 million to $4 billion annually.

To be sure, curators and collectors have always expressed a willingness to
return looted treasures. But therein lies the rub, because the burden of
proof rests with the country of origin. "The problem was a complete absence
of concrete evidence," explains Tubb. How could countries provide tangible
proof of ownership of items looted and smuggled? "Archaeologists always knew
what was going on," Tubb adds, and she thinks the museums did, too. "There's
been a great element of hubris; they never thought they'd be exposed."

Exposure finally came, in spades, in 1995 when luck and dogged detective
work combined to lead the Italian police to a warehouse in Geneva operated
by the antiquities trader Giacomo Medici. Inside, authorities found a
veritable Aladdin's cave of loot, ranging from marbles and bronzes to
frescoes and vases. More important, they uncovered thousands of documents
and photos, many of them showing items now in collections when they were
still encrusted in dirt. 

Suddenly, there was an abundance of a commodity once in short supply:
evidence. It took authorities a decade to sift through it, but the results
have been impressive. Medici was convicted last year on multiple charges,
including the illegal export of looted antiquities. Meanwhile, Gianfranco
Becchina, an Italian rival of Medici, is expected to go on trial next year,
says Paolo Ferri, the Italian prosecutor handling the cases. Last September,
police discovered and raided another Becchina warehouse and uncovered a huge
cache of documents they're still examining. And in April, Greek police
raided two villas containing 142 artifacts in an operation they say is
connected to the True case.
And that case, Ferri insists, is a strong one. "Part of the evidence we are
using is the same that convicted Medici," he says. And, Ferri says, so much
new evidence is accumulating "we may want a second indictment [against Hecht
and True]. That is possible later on" before the trial concludes. There's
certainly time: The trial began last July, and because the court meets only
once or twice a month, it won't end until sometime next year.

Robert Hecht is the scion of a prominent Baltimore family that founded a
chain of department stores by the same name. He's lived in Europe for
decades and worked on a doctorate in archaeology until 1950, when he began
selling art instead. In his long, colorful career, Hecht dealt with some of
the world's greatest museums. In 2001, a police raid on the Paris apartment
of his ex-wife uncovered an 88-page gold mine: a "memoir" in which Hecht
describes decades of dealing in unprovenanced antiquities.

Marion True, 57, was once the very model of the modern museum curator.
Worldly and scholarly, she reigned for nearly 20 years over the antiquities
department at the Getty, where she earned a reputation as an aggressive and
enlightened amasser of ancient artifacts. A Harvard Ph.D. who wrote her
thesis on the red-figured vases of ancient Greece, she has expressed
concerns about the trafficking of looted antiquities. In 1999, she sent
three objects back to Italy. And in 1995, the Getty announced it would shun
antiquities that were not part of established collections or otherwise
documented. Yet eight months later, the museum paid collectors Lawrence and
Barbara Fleischman $20 million for 33 pieces and accepted from them nearly
270 more objects as a donation worth $40 million. When questions were raised
about some of the items,the Getty insisted that its own publishing and
display of the items two years earlier constituted provenance. Says Tubb:
"It made a complete mockery of the policy." The Italian prosecutors call it
laundering. "This is part of the indictment," Ferri says. "It was a way to
make [the objects] clean."

Grecian holiday. True resigned from the Getty last October after it surfaced
that she had received a $400,000 loan in 1995 arranged by the late Christo
Michailidis, a Greek shipping magnate who was also the partner of Robin
Symes, a London dealer with links to Medici, who had sold many items to the
Getty. True used the money to buy a holiday villa on the Greek island of
Paros. A year later, she received a $400,000 loan from the Fleischmans,
which she used to pay off the first. For now, True is keeping mum, says her
American lawyer, Harry Stang. But she may testify. "A strong defense will be
put on, establishing her innocence," Stang says, "and she will be a part of
that."

What did Getty officials know, and when did they know it? A Los Angeles
Times story, based on leaked internal Getty documents, claimed that Getty
officials knew as early as 1985 that Hecht, Medici, and Symes "were selling
objects that probably had been looted." An attorney advising the museum
called the documents "troublesome" and urged that they not be given to
Italian investigators. The attorney argued that they didn't prove that True
knew that any "particular item was illegally excavated or demonstrate her
intent to join the conspiracy." The Getty declines to discuss True, the
trial, or the status of its talks with Italian and Greek officials.
Another character in Ferri's cross hairs is Symes, now bankrupt and fresh
out of a British prison where he was held for civil contempt of court in
another case. Ferri says he's still investigating Symes. Chillingly, Ferri
also doesn't rule out criminal charges against other curators. Howard
Spiegler, cochairman of the international art practice at Herrick,
Feinstein, a New York law firm, says that is a serious threat. "[Ferri] will
want that kind of pressure," if only to force museums to return objects.
Italian investigators say they have also linked items in the private New
York collection of Shelby White and her late husband, Leon Levy, to Medici.

As the investigation plays out, the Association of Art Museum Directors
continues to argue that unprovenanced works should be displayed if they are
rare and have historical importance and aesthetic merit. Philippe de
Montebello, director of the Met, says "to not consider them would contribute
to suppressing knowledge and also denying the public access to what is their
artistic heritage."

That kind of defiance aside, it's doubtful that many museums will continue
to risk buying or accepting donated antiquities of dubious provenance. "Who
needs the embarrassment?" Hoving asks. Moreover, trustees may balk at
spending huge sums on items that could end up being taken away. Instead,
museums will most likely seek long-term loan arrangements with countries of
origin, perhaps in exchange for funding legitimate excavations. Even the Met
might have lost some of its appetite for the Levy-White collection, which
once seemed destined to be donated to the museum. Next year, it will open a
newly built Roman Court, paid for in part by a $20 million donation from the
couple. But, de Montebello says, "the Met never planned to display the bulk
of the Levy-White collection. Only a handful of loans have ever been
contemplated and are still being contemplated."

Watson says the investigation has dealt the looted antiquities market a body
blow. "People won't collect them," he says, "if they're not convinced
museums will accept them." Indeed, Italian officials say the market in that
country has already shrunk by half. Perhaps it's time for the tombaroli to
look for day jobs. 

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