Facts Gone Astray

Michael Press discusses the exhibition entitled “Finds Gone Astray” that opened in December 2018 in the The Bible Lands Museum in West Jerusalem. The “Facts Gone Astray” exhibition comprised artefacts confiscated to looters and smugglers in the West Bank by the ADCO (Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration, where Civil Administration is the euphemisitic name for Israel’s military government of the Occupied Territories). Michael Press provides a bright and insightful overview of the problematic character of this exhibition, beginning with its location: a museum was founded by an Israeli private collector of untraced, almost surely looted artefacts. The exhibition constructs the ADCO as the “saviour” of antiquities from pillage: instead, not only the transfer of the confiscated pieces from the West Bank to East Jerusalem amounts to pillaging, but also do the core activities of the ADCO, as archaeological activity in Occupied Territory is illegal under the provisions of International Law.

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