Sociolingo’s Mali

Source: http://icom.museum/redlist/afrique/english/page04.htm

	Terracotta, bronzes and pottery from the Niger Valley (Mali)
			Jenne statue, terracotta
			© Musée national de Bamako (Mali) Click on the photos to see an enlarged version
	Provenance I Characteristics I The urgency of the situation I Legislation I Sources
	–Provenance
	Niger valley, Mali.
	–Characteristics
	These objects come from mounds in the flood plains of the Niger river. They are usually known as Jenne after the name of the town close to the archaeological site of Jenne-Jeno, but are actually found throughout the Niger valley. This site is a national heritage site and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. These terracotta sculptures, whose height ranges generally from 20 cm to 40 cm, represent mostly human figurines, often found intact. The human form is represented either kneeling or sitting, with arms crossed over the chest, or hands on thighs, gestures often being asymmetrical. Some horsemen and footmen may have their torsos wound about by a cross belt supporting a quiver. The bodies are smooth or covered with round pastilles, made from fine-grained clay. Pottery, some of which includes anthropomorphic motifs, and metal figurines are also found in this region. Among zoomorphic representations, snakes feature prominently. The shaven-headed human heads sometimes wear headgear and are characterised by protruding lips, triangular noses and above all by projecting eyeballs, whose brows are in the form of concentric grooves, and whose eyelashes are incisions radiating out from the eye. One subgroup stands out. It features longer and cylindrical bodies, smaller eyes not surrounded by incisions, as well as a large number of bracelets. These artworks are often classified into styles, from Bankoni and Segou. They come from the Bamako, Segou and Bougouni regions of the South of Mali.
	–The urgency of the situation
	The Musée national of Mali owns all statuettes found during official excavations. The majority of other statuettes known to exist from the Niger valley have been put into circulation by the looting of archaeological sites, 80% or 90% of which have been violated. Very little is therefore known about the cultures which produced these items, in spite of the very large number of objects now available on the art market. Their exact provenance will remain forever unknown, as also their date. The range of dates which the thermoluminescent examinations can provide is so wide that it leaves unresolved the problem of accurate dating. Given the urgency of the situation, programmes to raise awareness among the local population have been set up and the authorities are in a position to intervene and seize looted objects, as in Thial in 1990, and more recently in the spring of 1999, in a village close to Jenne.
National and international legislation protecting these objects:
	- Law No. 85-40/AN-RM, of 26 July 1985 concerning the protection and the promotion of the national cultural heritage, Decree No. 203/PG-RM of 13 August 1985 instituting a national commission for the safeguarding of the cultural heritage, Decree No. 275/PG-RM of 4 November 1985 regulating archaeological excavations, Decree No. 299/PG-RM of 19 September 1986 regulating the excavation, commercialization and export of cultural goods. (Mali) - Law No. 86-61/AN-RM of 26 July 1986 concerning dealers in cultural goods. (Mali) - UNESCO Convention of 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, ratified by Mali on 9 April 1987, in force on 6 July 1987. - Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Mali concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological Material from the Region of the Niger River Valley and the Bandiagara Escarpment (Cliff), 23 September 1993, extended by an agreement of 19 September 1997.
	–Sources
	- M. Dembele, A. M. Schmidt, J. D. van der Waals, 1993 : « Prospection de sites archéologiques dans le delta intérieur du Niger », Catalogue de l’exposition / Exhibition catalogue, Vallées du Niger, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux. - Samuel Sidibé, 1995 : « La lutte contre le pillage du patrimoine culturel malien et l’exportation illicite : efforts nationaux et coopération internationale » / « The Fight Against the Pillage of Mali’s Cultural Heritage and Illicit Exportation : National Efforts and International Cooperation », Le trafic illicite des biens culturels en Afrique / Illicit Traffic of Cultural Property in Africa, ICOM. - UNESCO Ð USIA.

Source: http://www.nsaccid.org/WARA%20Report.htm

Conserving Cultural Heritage with Microcredit: An Impact Assessment of the CultureBank in Fombori, Mali

This study presents an assessment of the social, economic and cultural impacts of the CultureBank in Fombori, Mali, based on field research in 2002. The CultureBank is a local initiative started in 1997 to conserve cultural heritage through the provision of small business loans to community members. Participants obtain credit by using cultural objects as collateral and the objects are conserved and publicly displayed in the CultureBank museum collection. This innovative approach to microcredit provides a financial incentive for cultural conservation in a rural community.

The Dogon CultureBank of Fombori

Submitted to The African Cultural Conservation Fund, Bamako, Mali

by

Tara F. Deubel

Graduate Research Assistant

Dr. Mamadou Baro

Assistant Research Professor

Department of Anthropology

Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology

University of Arizona

December 15, 2002

Read the full article

From OCPA NEWS 175

Cheick Oumar Sissoko on Mali’s cultural policy

“I believe my most important task is safeguarding the cohesion between the various ethnic groups in Mali. One of the available instruments is subsidising festivals…” In a Tuareg tent at the Festival au Desert, Minister of Culture Cheick Oumar Sissoko explains his policy. “Mali is rich with diversity. Without that, we would have no development,” Sissoko believes.

“The differences date from many centuries ago. We must welcome those differences and show respect for one another. We do that rather well because the people of Mali are extremely hospitable and socially oriented. The festivals have an important meeting function, and work very well.”

Read the full article at

http://www.powerofculture.nl/uk/current/2007/february/sissoko.html

DEPARTMENT OF STATE
[Public Notice 5695]

Notice of Meeting of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee

There will be a meeting of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee
on Thursday, March 15, 2007, from approximately 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
and on Friday, March 16, from approximately 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the
Department of State, Annex 44, Room 840, 301 4th St., SW., Washington,
DC. During its meeting the Committee will review a proposal to extend
the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United
States of America and the Government of the Republic of Guatemala
Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on Archaeological
Objects and Materials from the Pre-Hispanic Cultures of Guatemala, and
a proposal to extend the Memorandum of Understanding Between the
Government of the United States of America and the Government of the
Republic of Mali Concerning the Imposition of Import Restrictions on
Archaeological Material from the Region of the Niger River Valley and
the Bandiagara Escarpment (Cliff). The concerned Governments have each
notified the Government of the United States of America of their
interest in extending the respective MOU.

The Committee’s responsibilities are carried out in accordance with
provisions of the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act
(19 U.S.C. 2601 et seq.). The text of the Act and subject Memoranda of
Understanding, as well as related information, may be found at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leavingFR.html&log=linklog&to=http://exchanges.state.gov/culprop.
Portions of the meeting on March 15 and 16
will be closed pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(9)(B) and 19 U.S.C.
2605(h). However, on March 15, the Committee will hold an open session
from approximately 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., to receive oral public comment
on the proposals to extend. Persons wishing to attend this open session
should notify the Cultural Heritage Center of the Department of State
at (202) 453-8800 no later than March 7, 2007, 5 p.m. (EST) to arrange
for admission. Seating is limited.

Anyone wishing to make an oral presentation at the public session
must request to be scheduled, must state which MOU–Mali or Guatemala–
the presentation will address, and must submit a written text of the
oral comments by March 7, 2007, to allow time for distribution to
Committee members prior to the meeting. Oral comments will be limited
to allow time for questions from members of the Committee and must
specifically relate to the determinations under Section 303(a)(1) of
the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, 19 U.S.C. 2602,
pursuant to which the Committee must make findings. This citation for
the determinations can be found at the Web site noted above.

The Committee also invites written comments and asks that they be
submitted no later than March 7, 2007, to allow time for distribution
to Committee members prior to the meeting. All written materials,
including the written texts of oral statements, may be faxed to (202)
453-8803. If more than three (3) pages, 20 duplicates of written
materials must be sent by express mail to: Cultural Heritage Center,
Department of State, Annex 44, 301 4th Street, SW., Washington, DC
20547; tel: (202) 453-8800.

Dina Habib Powell,
Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs, Department of
State.

[FR Doc. E7-3368 Filed 2-26-07; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4710-05-P

Here’s an article from a journal I found a while back which addresses the issues of fake archaeological artefacts from Mali.

Faking African Art	Volume 54 Number 1, January/February 2001
by Michel Brent

A five-year investigation reveals that most West African terra-cotta sculptures are fakes that have fooled specialists, sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and ended up in some of the world’s most prestigious museums.

An African forger named Amadou added a body and hind legs to the authentic front part of the Kuhn ram (shown in white), a Malian terra cotta sold at Sotheby’s for $275,000 in 1991. (Photograph courtesy Michel Brent) [LARGER IMAGE]

On Wednesday, November 20, 1991, Sotheby’s New York auctioned the Kuhn collection of African objects. On the cover of the auction catalog was the collection’s masterpiece, a West African terra-cotta ram. Since thermoluminescence (TL) tests–a primary means of authentication–had indicated the figure was between 570 and 1,000 years old, there was no suspicion about the piece’s age. A little before noon, the animal was sold for $275,000. The Kuhn ram has not been the object of much discussion in the years since the sale, except in Mali, its country of origin. There, rumors have it the piece may have been faked.

Since the 1980s, nearly 80 percent of the allegedly antique terra cottas that have left Mali have been counterfeit. Prized by collectors, Malian terra cottas have been looted from hundreds of archaeological sites on the middle Niger River. As these pieces have become increasingly scarce, Malian antiquities dealers have sought faked pieces from local potters. The resulting trade has seriously corrupted the art historical record: in most cases it is now simply impossible to tell if terra cottas published in scholarly works on West African art are genuine.

One day in 1995, while investigating a story on West African cultural heritage, I saw a terra-cotta animal leg, remarkably similar to those of the ram sold in 1991, in the backyard of a Bamako antiquities dealer’s house. I had a sudden and inexplicable feeling–born of years of staring at these objects–that this leg had been fashioned by the same hand that had made the Kuhn ram. I decided to find out whether my intuition was correct.

Early in 1997, after persistent inquiry, I was put in touch with a Bamako potter named Amadou. Our meeting took place in March 1998 in the courtyard of a modest Bamako hotel. I asked Amadou if the Kuhn piece was real or fake. “It’s a fake,” he answered. “At least part of it. I was the one who made it.” Amadou told me that back in October 1986, in the village of Dary, a hamlet along the Niger River, erosion had exposed several pieces of terra cotta at an abandoned village site. “As for the [Kuhn] piece, I was able to fashion it from nose to hindquarters.” His handiwork from this prolific period also ended up in the Belgian count Baudouin de Grunne’s celebrated collection, as well as in Geneva’s Barbier Muller Museum. The stomach of the Pregnant Ewe on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was also found among the fragments in Dary and the entire piece refashioned by Amadou.

Once I heard Amadou’s story, I hurried to Dary, 450 miles northeast of Bamako, to find out if the villagers’ version corresponded with the forger’s. The village has a population of about 200. There are no roads leading to it, and three months out of the year when the Niger River overflows there is no overland access at all. There are no phones here, no electricity, and no running water.

When shown Amadou’s photos of the intact pieces that had emerged from the site, Denba Traore, the village chief, quickly grasped that I knew what had gone on there nine years before. For several hours I sought information from people in various parts of the village. Those who had taken part in the digging confirmed Amadou’s story, corroborating the names of the antiquities dealers involved in the digging, the time they spent at the site, the number of intact pieces recovered, and how the pieces were transported out of the bush in jute bags on a donkey cart. They also provided details concerning the authentic fragment of the Kuhn ram (its findspot and the depth at which it was buried) as well as the stomach of the Pregnant Ewe at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Everything checked out; Amadou had told me the truth.

Another factor favored the spread of fakes: publication during the 1980s of monographs, art books, and auction house sale catalogs devoted to West African terra cottas. Seyni M. Karabenta of Kourikoulo told me that once catalog photos of African terra cottas started appearing in Mali, he began producing nearly 100 fakes annually. In fact, he made so many forgeries over a 15-year period that insiders started calling his fakes “Karabentos.” Mobo Maiga, one of the two major Djenné dealers, confirmed that each time an authentic local piece was brought to him, he hired local sculptors to make several copies. Forgers no longer had to wait until new looted pieces emerged to copy them–they just worked directly from photos. Faking was simpler this way and the range of objects to copy wider. According to the forgers, to whom I showed a fair number of art books such as Bernard de Grunne’s Ancient Terra-cottas from West Africa and catalogs including that of the Menil Collection in the United States, the most important published African terra cottas have been copied several times, and the copies sold as ancient.

Inhabitants of the Malian village of Dary recognized a photograph of a genuine ram pillaged from the hamlet in 1986. The forger Amadou used fragments recovered during the looting to make the Kuhn ram and the Pregnant Ewe at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. (Photograph by Michel Brent) [LARGER IMAGE]

Today, West African forgers are counterfeiting Nok and Ife statues from Nigeria and Benin in response to trends in collecting. There’s no question that some African forgers are geniuses at what they do. Malian and Nigerian dealers have often told me how difficult it can be to distinguish fake from genuine when terra cottas arrive at their doorsteps. If those in the trade have such doubts, the deck is obviously stacked against their clients. Furthermore, West African terra cottas represent a relatively new market. It was only at the end of the 1960s that European collectors first started buying these pieces. The very “newness” of the art leaves the door wide open for forgeries. And a new class of collectors, less knowledgable than their predecessors, has now emerged who view authentic African art as a good financial investment. African dealers have now installed themselves in the United States, a huge market with potentially limitless profits. American buyers are considerably less careful than their European counterparts in distinguishing authentic from fake.

Also regrettable is the obsession among Western collectors with ancientness; white dealers who sell to them often disdain works of art younger than 100 years old, even when copies of wooden effigies made in Malian villages earlier in the twentieth century are sometimes better executed and more beautiful than the originals. Contemporary African art is flourishing, with Zimbabwean sculptors and Congolese bronze sculptors showing the way. While some forgers have created lucrative businesses selling their own wares, many more like Amadou are waiting for the time when they can step out of the shadows and own up to their considerable skills as legitimate creative artists.

A former regular contributor to the Belgian news magazine Le Vif-L’Express, Michel Brent has for the past eight years focused on cultural heritage issues in West Africa.

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© 2001 by the Archaeological Institute of America www.archaeology.org/0101/abstracts/africa.html

The following article from BBC News draws attention to the fact that the smuggling of illegal artefacts from African countries is a growing trade. The US has banned all imports of Malian artefacts unless they are accompanied by an official export permit, but not all other countries have such strict laws.

Mali relics recovered in France

Some of the artefacts confiscated may be up to one million years old

French customs officials say they have seized more than 650 ancient artefacts smuggled from Mali in one of the largest such finds at a Paris airport. Described as an “archaeological treasure”, the objects were thought to be on their way to private US buyers.

Experts say most of the items are from the Neolithic period, but some may be up to one million years old.

The artefacts are thought to have been taken from archaeological sites on the edge of the Sahara desert.

The 669 items - 601 stones and 68 bracelets - were confiscated on 19 January at Charles de Gaulle airport and included axe heads, flintstones and stone rings.

Most of the artefacts date from a few thousand years BC. But others are from the Acheulean period, between one million years and 200,000 years old, and from the Middle Stone Age (200,000 years BC to 20,000 years BC).

The artefacts were shipped in nine parcels from the Malian capital, Bamako, which the accompanying paperwork described as handcrafted objects.

Customs officials look out for artefacts being exported from specific countries such as Mali which may be smuggled, a customs spokeswoman told the BBC News website.

If they have a doubt, they then seize the objects and have them assessed by experts to establish their age - in this case an expert from the Department of Prehistory at the Natural History Museum in Paris, she said.

Growing traffic

This type of traffic was unheard of a few years ago, an airport customs official told the AFP news agency.

“Since 2004 we have observed regular traffic in this kind of contraband. There is a big market and we are pretty sure that these items, which had been neatly sorted and were of very high quality, had been pre-sold,” Eric Cailheton said.

French customs officials made two similarly large finds of archaeological items from Niger in March 2004 and December 2005.

The 2005 haul included more than 5,000 stone arrowheads and 90 carved stone artefacts, dating back 5,000 years.

The items were found in the baggage of a passenger who arrived on a flight from Niger’s capital, Niamey.

The Timbuktu manuscripts are now being studied by international researcher

© Alida Jay Boye/Unesco/afrol News

afrol News, 13 September - Efforts to conserve, store and expose the estimated 700,000 Timbuktu manuscripts, one of Africa’s principal cultural heritages, are going well ahead. Malians are educated into specialised manuscript conservators in South Africa and Tunisia and a new building to house the manuscripts is already being constructed in Mali’s ancient town of Timbuktu.

Among several institutions taking an interest in assisting the government of Mali to conserve its Timbuktu cultural treasures is the government of South Africa, which today signed a cultural cooperation agreement with Mali. Already during the last three years, however, Mali has counted on South African assistance for its Timbuktu manuscripts conservation project.

Since April 2003, South Africa’s National Archives has hosted a group of five Malian conservator trainees for approximately eight weeks annually. This has been followed with training workshops with the same five including a boarder group of Malian trainees at the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu.

The aim is to enable Mali and Timbuktu to take care of this African treasure by itself, as the Timbuktu manuscripts now rely on many foreign institutions to save many of the most damaged objects. A large number of historic documents from the 13th to 16th century are on the verge of being lost if not treated with urgency.

A great part of this necessary preservation is now being done in the US, under the auspices of the American Timbuktu Educational Foundation. Also a costly Norway-based Timbuktu Manuscripts Project is into the digitalisation of the documents to assure that valuable source materials from the West African Middle Ages are not being lost.

While these projects also partly focus on the need for Timbuktu to create revenues from its cultural treasure, impoverished Mali until now has not been able to handle these fragile papers as the government desires. Aid from South Africa however is now to be strengthened with assistance from Tunisia.

The governments of Tunisia, South Africa and Mali recently discussed further specialised manuscript conversion training for Malian trainees. In December 2005 South African Minister Essop Pahad visited Tunis and Kairouan to investigate the facilities and discuss collaborations on the training of the Malians in preservation. Training of Malian conservators was to take place in Mali and Tunisia.

The cooperation also includes the construction of a building in Timbuktu that is to house the manuscripts. The building is estimated to cost rand 22 million (euro 2.4 million), and fundraising in South Africa has already brought together much of this amount. Construction was started in April this year.

When the building is inaugurated, it is hoped that the newly educated Malian conservators will be able to take charge of the main conservation work of the Timbuktu manuscripts. There also exist vaguer plans for exhibitions of the manuscripts for tourists in the building, along with a research centre and library. The library is to house between 200,000 and 300,000 manuscripts currently locked away in 24 private libraries in and around Timbuktu.

The Timbuktu manuscripts are the principal written sources to West Africa’s old history, and most have never been studied by modern scholars. They date back from the time when Timbuktu was one of the world’s leading cultural and religious centres, hosting the ancient empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. The documents include the highest level of science from their era, demonstrating Timbuktu’s importance as an intellectual centre.

During the last centuries, many documents have been lost due to accidents, ignorance or robbery. Still, original Timbuktu documents are being offered on the black market in the region. The manuscripts, along with the entire ancient city of Timbuktu, have been declared world cultural heritage by UNESCO.

By staff writer

© afrol News