Crimes against Art: Forgery, Theft & Repatriation Issues: Cultural Heritage

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and frank interviews, Felch and Frammolino give a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum and tell the story of the Getty’s dealings in the illegal antiquities trade.

London; New York: Verso, 2008. The Parthenon Marbles (formerly known as the Elgin Marbles), designed and executed by Pheidias to adorn the Parthenon, are perhaps the greatest of all classical sculptures. In 1801, Lord Elgin, then ambassador to the Turkish government, had chunks of the frieze sawn off and shipped to England, where they were subsequently seized by Parliament and sold to the British Museum to help pay off Elgin's debts.The author argues that the opening of the new Acropolis Museum makes the reunification of the Parthenon frieze in Athens appropriate.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. This important book explores the removal and the return of cultural objects from occupied communities from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century and explores the concurrent evolution of international cultural heritage law. Examining the responses of governments and of museums to the question of restitution, this book is essential reading for archaeologists, international lawyers and all those involved in cultural resource management.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, c2009. The international controversy over who "owns" antiquities has pitted museums against archaeologists and source coutries where ancient artifacts are found. The author argues that antiquities are the cultural property of humankind, not of the countries that lay exclusive claim to them.

New York: Times Books, 2008. Sharon Waxman raises many challenging questions in this study about the conflict over classical antiquities and the breach of international regulations by Western countries. The author favors allowing Western museums to keep their purloined treasures although she gives everyone equal voice from curators to archaeologists to journalists uncovering these crimes.