Transcription
What if I told you that we only know a mere 0.5% of India's history? That's right. This tiny little square represents everything we know. 1.6 million artifacts registered and documented. The rest, that's everything we should know but don't have access to. An estimated 300 million artifacts in total, according to independent heritage experts.
But what happened to all of this? The private market for artifacts happened. Million-dollar auctions and money laundering, illegal digs and smugglers, and corrupt temple robbing scholars. Yes, greed has destroyed our record of India's history.
>> Welcome to the party. >> 1 minute up front, 2 million. 22 30 million. >> Entire libraries of ancient literature and inscriptions. Entire galleries of statues, paintings, and weapons. The best of the best that India has to offer. Sanitized and sold to the highest bidder.
Here's the crux of the problem. The private market for artifacts deletes historical data from the public record. >> The archeological record is being systematically destroyed. >> The common argument used by insiders to defend the private market is that buyers are excellent custodians of history. But only a tiny percentage of collections are accessible to outsiders. And that means that our hope of really understanding the human past is being undermined.
Bear in mind that only the most marketable artifacts even make it to the auction block. This gorgeous piece sold for $6.6 million. This piece sold for $2 million. And this piece sold for $800,000. This one made it to auction, too, but sold for a mere $7,500. It depicts an unknown Gandharan water deity, as well as the ancient architecture of the Swept Valley. And yet, it is not available for academic investigation. Items like this could be crucial to building our understanding of Indian history if only we had access.
Just imagine what we don't know about the Indus civilization simply because so many artifacts are inaccessible. Because for every artifact that actually makes it to auction, around 30 to 50 artifacts are rotting away at some dealer's storage facility. And if that isn't bad enough, countless more artifacts are illegally excavated to supply these facilities.
Look at that green square. It represents the entire sum of knowledge accessible to the collections of private custodians. And this is the sea of ignorance representing millions and millions of hidden artifacts either locked in someone's inaccessible collection or in a middleman's storage. But there's no database of artifacts so that academics can request access. And so the vast majority of artifacts on the private market remain invisible to the world. Forget about custodianship because a system that buries 100 artifacts to save one is destructive to the historical record.
The statistical reality is that we could solve major historical mysteries right now. We could fill massive gaps in the historical record right now if only there wasn't a private market for history. Don't believe me? Meet Kanishka, leader of the Kushan Empire and arguably one of the most important kings in Indian history, but only known to the public as a headless stump of a statue. For decades, academics spent time, energy, and resources speculating on his appearance and what it might say about Kushan culture and the dynamics of power. Then, in 2021, an item that a private buyer once had tucked away in a vault was finally revealed to the world: a fully formed, unbroken statue of Kanishka, face and all, with a Saka inscription identifying him. But scholars still don't have proper access to the statue, so they can't actually verify anything for the historical record. >> Could it be that the dealer was just trying to pump up the value of their asset? We may never know.
So much of the conversation about the private market for artifacts focuses on illegal smuggling. The ugly truth: smuggling is an integral part of the legal artifact pipeline. Buyers and sellers are fully aware of the system in which they participate.
This is Norton Simon, canned food magnate and legendary art and artifact collector. In fact, he was so famous that he even graced the cover of Time magazine. Entire documentaries were made about him. Simply put, Simon knew exactly how the system worked. Regarding the Chola era Shivapuram Nataraja, he told a Times of London reporter, "Hell yes, it was smuggled. I spent between 15 million and 16 million last year on Asian art, and most of it was smuggled."
But buyers and sellers like Simon aren't the only problem. Corrupt academics greased the wheels of the machine. This is the scholar Mary Slusser, an absolute titan of Himalayan art history. She was posthumously exposed in 2023 for her role in the illicit trade of Nepali and Indian antiquities. Slusser would photograph valuable artifacts at temples. Then, coincidentally, those same artifacts would be stolen and appear in the hands of big-time dealers. Slusser would then write articles about the stolen artifacts in trade journals like Orientations and Arts of Asia. Her articles would list the items as being from a private collection, deliberately omitting her own photographic evidence that the artifacts were in a temple just a few years prior. This allowed the items to be possessed by major institutions in the West like the Sackler Gallery and the Rubin.
Check this out. Regarding a stolen Himalayan artifact, Slusser discussed options for getting around the law with Elizabeth Knight, who was the editor of Orientations magazine and also a renowned scholar of Asian art. "It could be published as just private collection. People will think it belongs to me. There is total silence regarding exact provenance. Except for you and me. I don't believe there is a soul in the world who would recognize where it came from." Again, these are scholars, the sort that will wax poetic about India on a book tour or at a speaking engagement, all while helping sell its history behind closed doors.
Speaking of behind closed doors, Slusser explained, "Once a dealer trusts you, Western buyers get taken to shadowy backrooms with the good stuff that was hidden away from the general public." She even acknowledged that it would be theoretically illegal to export whatever items were purchased. Slusser further explained that these dealers make special house calls to trusted Westerners to showcase new items they've procured. During these house calls, she purchased these and other antique paintings from a shady dealer in Nepal known only as Mr. T. Never mind the fact that all of this was done in secret precisely because the artifacts were illegally sourced.
And check out the shameless admission in a puff piece published on the Rubin Museum's own website. Note that the artifact was still smeared with fresh food residue and recently made ritual markings, indicating that it had very likely been illegally removed from an active shrine.
But how does an illicit artifact actually make it to auction or to a museum? Artifact auctions have to at least maintain the illusion of legality. Well, the artifact has to be cleaned before it can go to auction. Yes, a middleman can acid wash the artifact to make its source untraceable, but that alone won't remove the stain of illegality. Whitewashing an illicit artifact requires serious legitimacy infrastructure. We're talking shell companies, provenance forging, scholarly blurbs, and more. As one might expect, this requires a great deal of coordination.
Consider the decades-long collaboration between museum research consultant Emma Bunker and British antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford, whose illicit artifact network helped the Khmer Rouge secure the funding necessary for their genocide. Fun fact: Latchford and billionaire buyer Leon Black are both mentioned in the Epstein files. Specifically, the files talk about Latchford's sale of smuggled antiquities to Mr. Black. Latchford smuggled countless 10th-century Khmer and Indian artifacts out of major sites like Angkor to be sold at a high price in the West. These artifacts now had to be cleaned and legitimized. So, Bunker authored high-end coffee table books such as Adoration and Glory. By referencing and including the stolen items in these books, Bunker provided the artifacts with a publication history. And when selling the artifacts at auction, Sotheby's and other auction houses cited the book as proof of the items' legitimacy and provenance. The auction houses were fully aware of the illicit nature of these artifacts.
In an email sent from Bunker to Sotheby's officials, "The Cambodians now have clear evidence that it was definitely stolen from Angkor." Bunker and Sotheby's also discussed strategies for circumventing the law and avoiding public backlash, which included the possibility of holding a closed auction as opposed to an open auction so that nobody would ever find out about the crime. Side note: Sotheby's hired a scientist to make a false conclusion that the statue's damage was caused in ancient times and not due to smuggling. But this scientist actually concluded that the statue was likely broken and then smuggled. He was terminated as a result, and a friendlier scientist was hired as his replacement.
Court documents revealed that Sotheby's executives not only considered the risk of bad press but had outlined specific ways to respond to outside criticism. The price and importance of the item for their New York Asia Week event made it worth the risk. So, yes, these auction houses are hands-on involved in the illegal artifact pipeline. No matter how many glitzy events they throw for millionaires and billionaires, no matter how many celebrity historians and legendary collectors they invite to promote their services, >> the combination of guilt bronze and silver, the way the jewelry is done with all these turquoise stones, this is just in a class of its own. >> It's important that we don't lose sight of the ugly reality.
Meet Vamman Gia, the mastermind behind the theft of tens of thousands of valuable Indian artifacts. Gia possessed entire warehouses full of these artifacts, many of them illegally pried from temples and other ruin sites. Here's the thing: Gia was a favorite dealer of Sotheby's and Christie's for decades. In fact, representatives from Sotheby's London regularly traveled to India to meet with Gia and procure artifacts from his warehouses. These Sotheby's specialists were tasked with evaluating the stolen artifacts to determine which would fetch the highest prices at auction in the West. Switzerland was the cleaning house. Once representatives identified that an artifact was particularly valuable, Gia then laundered its provenance using a combination of Swiss shell companies, fraudulent papers on yellowed pages, and Geneva free ports. at auction. This allowed Sotheby's to claim that the artifacts were sourced from legitimate Swiss companies rather than from a shady dealer in India. But Sotheby's was aware of the truth because their very own representatives were the ones visiting Gia and pre-selecting the artifacts that were later auctioned. Sotheby's was also aware that their wrongdoing had to be covered up. Internal memos show that they knew their visits with Gia would be monitored by Indian authorities, and so Sotheby's suggested that his representatives come up with false pretenses for the visits. Criminal misconduct was core to the job. Felicity Nicholson, then director of antiquities at Sotheby's, even admitted that she found the shady side of the business to be rather pleasant. And Christie's, well, they allegedly continued to talk shop with Gia as late as January 2003 while he was being actively investigated for illegal smuggling.
There's simply no accountability. Every major player in the industry is aware of what's going on. Take a look at what Thomas Hoving, director of the Met, had to say about the Indian artifact pipeline: "Loose enforcement and loose morals have made for a thriving diving antiquities market, one in which there's a revolving door process between academia and the commercial artifact world. First, you do the rounds in a public institution, then you make bank off artifact sales."
Take Dr. Ahmed Jaffer, historian and social media darling based in the UK. Jaffer spent 12 years as a senior curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was the primary academic voice behind the museum's Indian exhibitions, and he authored definitive books on Indo-European decor. Then he moved to Christie's. In a remarkably candid interview, Jaffer admitted that one of his primary motivations for moving to Christie's was to "monetize my rolodex." This rolodex is the vast network of high-net-worth buyers he cultivated while working at a public institution. Jaffer now also serves as a curator for the private Al-Thani Collection, whose Indian artifacts regularly set records at Christie's auctions. Now that is monetizing your rolodex effectively. Remember, this is legal, and what little regulation does exist is barely enforced. According to a 2013 government report, the Archaeological Survey of India has never once attempted to investigate or collect information on any of the Indian antiquities put on sale at Sotheby's and Christie's. Their excuse: no clear legal provision commanded them to do so.
Look, Indian history is being sold at an alarming rate, and some of your favorite historians are actively promoting this private market by lending their legitimacy and reputation to various auctions and artifacts. Here's what best-selling historian William Dalrymple wrote in his book, The Anarchy: "By his own estimates, a single private collection in the Welsh countryside had more Mughal artifacts than any single place in India, the National Museum of New Delhi included." And yet, despite acknowledging the sheer disproportionality of it all, here he is shilling for auctions of valuable items from Indian history, helping to facilitate an even deeper knowledge and access gap.
So a lot of these pictures we're seeing for the first time. Astonishing collection. There is no better collection anywhere in the world. These remarkable spectacles come from the high Mughal period. They are an extraordinary and unique piece of history. The Benjamin sword is one of the most magnificent weapons to survive from 18th-century India. It not only has a perfect provenance, it's not only a perfect uh weapon in a perfect state of preservation, but it's also an object of extraordinary beauty. This is one of the finest swords ever to come on the market. >> Astonishing, extraordinary, perfect, perfect, perfect. That's what he's being paid to do: hype up the sale and promote the legitimacy of the artifact.
Dalrymple has also written for Bonhams magazine and other publications whose sole purpose is to promote artifact sales. Oh, surprise surprise. Bonhams used his articles to directly promote the sale of relevant artifacts. And here's the eminent George Michell helping legitimize sandstone jalis that have no clear provenance. In fact, he routinely writes blurbs in auction catalogs. These don't contribute to the corpus of knowledge, as there's no peer review. It is purely a marketing effort. Michell co-founded the Dean Heritage Foundation, which actively participates in the promotion of auctions such as at the Asia Week event in New York. The other co-founder, Stefan Blow, was previously chairman at Christie's Italia and he even held leadership positions at high-powered Geneva banks. These connections run deep. For example, Christie's London hosted the launch of the Deccan Heritage Foundation's book on the architecture of the Deccan. And if you're not aware, the DHF actively supervises key sites across India. Now that you know their conflicts of interest, do you trust them with historical stewardship?
This is popular art historian Ursula Weeks. And here she is helping to legitimize a Sotheby's auction of Indian arms and armor. And here she is celebrating the high sale price of an Indian painting at Ider Nordman. She even made a fun little reel to celebrate a record-setting Christie's auction. >> Sold with you 8 million.
But why would brilliant historians, people who claim to love Indian history, shill for a market that actively obscures it? First, consulting fees. Big, juicy consulting fees. After all, these historians are critical for building confidence in an artifact's value and its perfect provenance. Second, if they want to access the really good stuff, the unseen paintings, the unpublished manuscripts, they have to play nice with the people who own it. If they ask too many questions about where that Chola bronze actually came from, funding and access disappears.
Okay, just a quick interruption. At Odd Compass, we've been hard at work building Rakasa, a dark fantasy RPG set in urban India. Curious? Here's our updated gameplay trailer. Mhm. Heat. Heat. Oh, heat, heat.
If the vast majority of private buyers don't actually care about preservation or about contributing to our shared public understanding of history, then why is there such a massive market for antiquities? Well, it just so happens that artifacts make an excellent investment vehicle. By strategically buying and selling antiquities, one can artificially pump value, launder money, evade taxes, and more.
Here's how it works. Once an artifact is purchased at auction, it typically remains where the previous buyer kept it in a tax-exempt freeport, a high-end climate-controlled warehouse designed to store valuable art and antiquities. These freeports are often located in Luxembourg, Switzerland, UAE, and Hong Kong. After some years, a friendly appraiser is brought in to pump up the value of the artifact before it goes back to auction. The value increase can be justified due to a number of factors: it was briefly loaned to a museum, for example, or it was referenced in articles or books or blurbs in magazines like Arts of Asia. Or perhaps there's newfound market interest in the origin country's history. At auction, the artifact sells at a significantly higher price thanks to the appraisal, and thus millions and millions of dollars are quietly pumped and dumped. For those who want to go totally tax-free, the artifact can be donated for a massive tax write-off instead. Because of the subjective nature of appraisal and because assets change hands without having to go through customs and because the sale was anonymous, there is a completely untraceable paper trail. It's a perfect setup for money laundering.
Who benefits? Well, extremist groups, for one. Did you know that the second highest income generator for ISIS after oil was the antiquities trade? In fact, heritage experts estimate that ISIS was generating hundreds of millions of dollars per year through the private artifact pipeline. And you might recall that in 2001, the Taliban destroyed the timeless Bamiyan Buddhas of Afghanistan. But did you know that immediately after the site's destruction, they looted the remaining artifacts and smuggled them out of Afghanistan so that they could be sold on the private market?
Look, there's no such thing as an innocent buyer because none of this happens without a buyer. Remember, many of those involved aren't obvious villains. They're charming aficionados, scholars, even. Their illicit activities are covered up by a thick layer of sophistication. Those who feel bad about their role in the unethical artifact trade engage in all sorts of strange mental gymnastics. Douglas Latchford even had the audacity to make a reincarnation argument. In a 2012 interview, he stated, "Buddhist priests told me I was Khmer in a previous life and that what I collect had once belonged to me."
Artifacts whose illicit nature is extremely obvious are exchanged through a private sale, a unique service offered by the various auction houses. Take a look at Bonhams' service page. It's interesting how the discreet and confidential nature of the transaction is so important to the service, don't you think? But even the artifacts that go to public auction have questionable provenance more often than not.
There are two regulations that auction houses have to be careful about: the 1970 UNESCO convention and the 1995 Unidroit Convention. So, what you'll find is that many Asian artifacts listed at auction have a fraudulent or otherwise questionable provenance that's listed as 1970 or earlier, or 1995 or earlier. This is in order to circumvent these international regulations. This one even has a publication history that involves a scholar getting an invite to publish excerpts of select collector items to pump up the value. Confused? Think of it like a teenager trying to purchase alcohol with a fake ID. They have to falsify their date of birth on the ID so that they are at least 21 or older. Similarly, artifact dealers falsify an artifact's provenance to make it seem like it was acquired before 1970 or 1995, depending on the jurisdiction.
So, next time you're wondering why the details of Indian and Asian history are so sparse, you might want to consider how much of it is sold in hyped-up auctions or locked away in a tax-exempt warehouse. And now you know.