Recent debates on repatriation of prominent archaeological remains have received a fair amount of media coverage. It will be well-known to most, that in the past centuries, objects and monuments were removed by colonial powers from countries in the Eastern Mediterranean under dubious circumstances, and that archaeological artefacts are still smuggled out of this region to be purchased by private collectors. Fewer will be aware, that in the 19th and 20th centuries, objects and monuments such as amphorae, stelae, columns, and entire buildings were gifted by Eastern Mediterranean rulers and governments in a systematic effort to forge goodwill and to foster political and economic ties. Four such artefacts, coined by Elizabeth R. Macaulay as ‘archaeological ambassadors’ are discussed in this book. They were gifted to the U.S. or specifically to New York City (henceforth NYC) at a time when the political and economic power of the U.S. and the standing of NYC as a cultural and economic capital was in the ascendant.
Macaulay’s book comprises six chapters with Chapter 1 introducing the book and Chapter 6 examining the modern reception and current state of the ‘archaeological ambassadors’. The remaining four chapters constitute individual case studies. Chapter 1 outlines first the aim of the book, which is to investigate ‘why Egypt, Greece, and Jordan gifted numerous archaeological artefacts and monuments to NYC between 1879 and 1965’ (p. 3). Macaulay situates the gifting within the historic, economic, and political contexts of both the giving and receiving nations and discusses how archaeological gifts were used as diplomatic tools. The chapter explores the definition and purpose of a gift through the works of several sociologists and anthropologists, for example Marcel Mauss, who argued for the importance of reciprocity, while David Graeber argued that gifts can cancel debts. As demonstrated in the following chapters, both viewpoints are central to Macaulay’s analysis of the motivation that caused Eastern Mediterranean rulers and governments to gift archaeological monuments and artefacts to NYC. Finally, Macaulay outlines the theoretical frameworks of materiality, object biography and object itinerary as significant to the topic of this book. These frameworks run as undercurrents in the book’s chapters but are not explicitly revisited again.
The following chapters are organised chronologically starting with the gifting of an obelisk brought from the ruins of the Caesareum in Alexandria (Chapter 2). The obelisk and its twin (now in London) are known as Cleopatra’s Needles. This was the first archaeological gift received by NYC: it was inaugurated in its new home in Central Park on 22nd January 1881. Macaulay outlines the history of the removal of Egyptian obelisks first as trophies by Roman emperors and later as gifts under Ottoman rule, especially in the reign of Muhammed Ali (r. 1805-48), who actively used the country’s antiquities and especially its obelisks to gain favour with foreign nations. Macauley explores the context of the gifting of Cleopatra’s needle to NYC: Egypt had found itself in a major debt crisis following successive years of excessive borrowing and was hoping to forge enough goodwill to secure a trade deal with the U.S. Egypt received little in return other than goodwill and increased tourism, but the obelisk was, according to Macaulay, hugely important for the establishment of NYC as a cultural capital, showing that the city was on par with Paris and London. Its installation in Central Park was followed by extensive purchasing of Egyptian Antiquities by the Met, leading to the museum hosting one of the world’s largest collections outside of Egypt.
Chapter 3 expands upon an article published by the author, as Macaulay-Lewis and Reilly (2021). It is centred on a mid-fourth century BC funerary stela (until recently known as the Marathon Stone), which was gifted in 1923 to City College of New York and incorporated into the no-longer existing Lewisohn Stadium. The gifting of the stone is discussed in the context of prominent examples of gifts and thefts such as the disputed removal of the Parthenon marbles by Lord Elgin in 1801-12 and the gifting of a block from the Parthenon for inclusion in the Washington Monument in the mid-19th century. Macaulay argues that the value assigned to antiquities by Greek governments was flexible and hinged on the perceived rarity of the object.
In Chapter 4, Macaulay turns her attention to a column from the archaeological site of Jerash, which was gifted to NYC by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on the occasion of the 1964-65 World Fair, which took place in Flushing Meadows, Corona Park in Queens, NYC. This chapter is expanded from a previous publication by Macaulay-Lewis and Simard (2015). Macaulay positions the gifting of the column within Jordan’s historical context. As a new country (which gained independence in 1946) and an important ally for U.S. in the Middle East, the gifting served to cement political and economic ties as well as to foster appreciation of Jordan as a tourist destination. The column was presented as originating from Jerash’s prominent Temple of Artemis, but Macaulay-Lewis and Simard have convincingly concluded that it derived from the colonnade of one of Jarash’s porticoed streets. As such, it was one of many, a spare, which could easily be donated without ripping into Jordan’s unique cultural heritage. Similar examples of gifts from Jordan include a column from Amman (ancient Philadelphia) given to its namesake, the U.S. city of Philadelphia; a Dead Sea scroll jar for the Met; and column capitals gifted to the elite universities of Harvard, Princeton, and Pennsylvania. Through these gifts, Macaulay argues, Jordan not only employed its rich heritage for diplomatic purposes, but also emphasised its Classical past and promoted itself as a part of the Christian Holy Land.
The book’s fourth case study (Chapter 5) considers the gifting of the Temple of Dendur to U.S. in 1965. The Temple is housed in the Met in the former Sackler Wing. It was presented to thank the US for its financial support of the UNESCO international campaign to save the monuments of Nubia following the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s. The construction of the new dam led to the creation of Lake Nasser, which flooded numerous archaeological sites, and displaced a vast number of Nubians. The UNESCO campaign comprised a massive international collaboration that lasted from 1959 to 1980. The campaign included the relocation of nearly two dozen monuments of which four temples were gifted to supporting nations. Macaulay compares the gifting of the Dendur Temple to partage, a common practice in past archaeological explorations in which artefactual finds from excavations were shared between the country of origin and the foreign sponsors. Partage was a key incentive for museums to sponsor fieldwork in Egypt. It remained legal until 1983, but already from 1922, Egypt began to limit the export of antiquities. However, the UNESCO campaign and the gifting of four temples to foreign nations marked a comparable return to past practices.
The book’s final chapter (Chapter 6) considers first the reception and current state of the archaeological gifts. Macaulay describes visiting the book’s four case studies and interviewing New Yorkers and tourists about them. The Temple of Dendur remains a key attraction in the cornucopia of the Met’s display, and Cleopatra’s Needle garners a fair amount of attention. However, the Greek funerary stela is now one amongst several in the Met’s galleries and the column of Jerash has largely been forgotten with most users of the park being oblivious of its origin. Macaulay then summarises the main motivation for each archaeological gift and the long-term impact of this type of cultural diplomacy. She concludes her book with a brief discussion of the tensions between legally and illegally exported artefacts and the need for a case-by-case evaluation to assess which objects were rightfully gifted and which were removed by foreign nations without sufficient permits or gifted by rulers who treated their country’s antiquities as their personal property. A Benin Bronze, which was removed from the National Museum in Lagos and presented by General Yukubu Gowon to Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of a state visit in 1973, is a case in point.
Macaulay’s book sheds light on a hitherto underexplored aspect of the movement of objects. While there are numerous studies that address both the legal and illegal movement of individual objects and object categories, Macaulay’s book is the first to systematically examine the gifting of objects to a U.S. city. It is an important contribution to post-colonial archaeology and object studies, as it provides a nuanced perspective on ownership of artefacts and monuments. It is richly referenced, and each chapter is equipped with its own bibliography. Altogether, this is a valuable book, which will be read by scholars and students (and perhaps an occasional New Yorker intrigued by their city’s monuments) who are interested in the intersection of archaeology and politics, and who wish to understand some of the many ways in which the past has been used, and in some cases manipulated, to influence the present.
Bibliography
Macaulay-Lewis, E., and Reilly, M.C. (2021), ‘Respice, Adspice, Prospice: The ‘Marathon Stone’, Lewisohn Stadium, and the changing reception of the classics at City College in the twentieth century,’ Classical Receptions Journal 13 (4), 457-484.
Macaulay-Lewis, E., Simard, J. (2015), ‘From Jerash to New York: Columns, Archaeology, and Politics at the 1964-65 World’s Fair,’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 74 (3), 343-364.