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The talk, titled “Ancient Art and Modern Crime: How Stolen Antiquities End Up In Our Most Respected Museums”, will be part of Carlton University’s Shannon Lecture Series. All are invited to attend this free lecture in room 252 of Carleton University’s MacOdrum Library at 2:30p.m. A reception will follow. For more...

For the project “Trafficking transformations: objects as agents in transnational criminal networks”

We are pleased to announce that Emiline Smith has passed her PhD viva with flying colours. Emiline’s dissertation, entitled “Illicit Markets in the Global City: The Cultural Property Trade in Hong Kong”, is the product of a year of dedicated fieldwork on the movement of cultural objects through the region. Her work expands upon the idea of Hong Kong as a global city, taking a...

With partner Ecorys, Neil Brodie and Donna Yates have been selected to complete European Commission EAC/06/2017 “Improving Knowledge on Illicit Trade in Cultural Goods in the EU”.

Dr Christos Tsirogiannis will be speaking at the McDonal Lunchtime Seminar Series at the University of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute of Archaeology. The title of his talk is “Recent Developments in Illicit Antiquities Research” and it will take place on Wednesday, 17 January 2018, 13.15 pm in the McDonald Institute Seminar Room, Courtyard Building, Downing Site.

“Radiocarbon dating and protection of cultural heritage” has been organized by ETH Zurich and University of Geneva, with a support of the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Commission for UNESCO, Bern. Yates will be speaking about the antiquities market as a “grey market” with a special focus on how the actions of professionals and experts supports and...

Prof. Mackenzie’s talk is entitled Policing white-collar crime and organised crime in international markets in trafficked cultural objects. The public lecture will be held on Monday 6 November from 7 to 8:30pm. More information is available from the Criminology Department at Wilfred Laurier University. An abstract for the talk is below: This talk will consider the challenges of policing...

Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis’ work has been featured on The History Channel’s website: In August 2004, Christos Tsirogiannis got a message that would change his life. Would he be interested in accompanying the Athens police on a raid? It might not seem like a job for an archaeologist, but police told him they might need his expertise once they got there. He agreed, got in an unmarked...

Organised by Professor Duncan Chappell, Dr Saskia Hufnagel, and Ms Marissa Marjos, this is the third of three AHRC-funded Art Crime focused workshops, the first two of which were in London and were great. This workshop specifically focuses on the looting, plunder, and destruction of heritage. Yates will be be providing a regional case study: trafficking of antiquities in and out of Latin...

The theme of this year’s ARA conference is ‘Challenge the Past, Set the Agenda’. Dr Brodie’s keynote, held on 1 Sept from 9:30 to 10:20 am, is entitled: “Scholarly Engagement with Unprovenanced Ancient Manuscripts”: There is increasing concern in the UK and Republic of Ireland about the risk of theft, destruction or illicit disposal of cultural heritage, though...

Full story featured in The New York Times...

Donna spoke about the “red flags” that were ignored by the purchaser of thousands of Iraqi artefacts. Both the audio of the interview and a written version can be found here: https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-07-06/hobby-lobby-ignored-red-flags-about-stolen-iraqi-artifacts...

Donna’s presentation is titled “Sacred Security: Threat, Vulnerability, and the Protection of Sacred Art in Nepal”, and is based on a soon-to-be published paper co-authored with Simon Mackenzie. The workshop is free to attend, with registration available via this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/workshop-on-disadvantage-tickets-35343002873 More information about the workshop: 6th...

Organized Crime along “One Belt – One Road” was hosted by the City University of Hong Kong.

The symposium and WCOM project is funded by the University of Helsinki Future Fund.

“Museum-Goers Beware: That Ancient Artifact May Be Stolen”

Join our Neil Brodie as he explores the Maya site of La Corona, Guatemala, a heavily looted ancient city which may be the mysterious Site Q. 

Neil Brodie will be in Providence, Rhode Island, today to speak at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology at Brown University. His talk is entitled: The Theft and Trafficking of Cultural Objects from Syria, and it is part of a year-long lecture series called “Combating Crisis: New Responses to Cultural Heritage Preservation in the Middle East” sponsored by the Joukowsky Institute...

Simon will be giving a talk titled “Cultural Capitalism and Cross-Border Crime: International Trafficking in Cultural Objects”

This session at the 82nd annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology meeting.