Founded in 1879, the AIA was chartered by the United States Congress in 1906, in recognition of its role in the development and passage of the Antiquities Act, which Theodore Roosevelt signed into law that year. Today, the AIA remains committed to preserving the world’s archaeological resources and cultural heritage for the benefit of people in the present and in the future.
The statement of the AIA, the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation, the U.S. Committee for the Blue Shield, and others urging Senate ratification can be downloaded here.
The AIA applauds the AAMD’s revision of its Report and Guidelines on the Acquisition of Archaeological Materials and Ancient Art released on June 4. These new guidelines incorporate many principles that the AIA has long advocated.
For-profit salvage groups and underwater treasure hunting corporations, says Jerome Lynne Hall, have succeeded in manipulating public opinion with several clever and closely woven deceptions regarding underwater cultural heritage.
Since their first invention in western Turkey in the late seventh century B.C., coins have been struck in precious metals and copper alloys, and since that time they have been lost, buried in hoards, placed in graves, or otherwise left behind for archaeologists to find. When coins are found as part of a scientific excavation, they can make an immense contribution to our understanding of ancient society. In this effort, numismatists and archaeologists can work hand in hand, facilitating discoveries and interpretations that neither discipline could produce in isolation.
The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) notes with approval the moratorium on the acquisition of undocumented antiquities declared by the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) on April 16, 2007, which will remain in effect while the IMA “evaluates and reframes” its current policies on the collection of antiquities and ancient art.
At the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society (AOS), a special panel presented the information that a relatively modest outlay of funds could help protect the more aggressively looted sites in Iraq.
As President of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), I am writing to express my strong support on behalf of the AIA for the inclusion of coins as a designated category of archaeological material in the extension of the bilateral agreement between the Republic of Cyprus and the United States under Section 303 of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act. Our support for inclusion of coins applies only to those coins that are more than 250 years old and that are found on Cyprus.
The Cultural Property Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of State is asking for additional public comment on the inclusion of ancient coins in the Cypriot request for import restrictions.
An unprecedented international agreement to combat the destruction of the archaeological record and the depredations caused by looting and the illegal trade in undocumented antiquities was signed at the Annual Meeting by the AIA, German Archaeological Institute, and the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Patty Gerstenblith, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation
