The Ka Nefer Nefer and Federal Intervention in the Illicit Antiquities Trade

Summary

The Federal Government has taken a more active approach to the illicit trade in looted and stolen antiquities. In some cases this Federal role has produced increased awareness and produced some notable seizures and returns. However the Federal intervention in a dispute between Egypt and the St. Louis Art Museum over an ancient Egyptian mask known as the Ka Nefer Nefer offers a cautionary tale. The Museum purchased the mask in 1998, after a cursory examination of the object's history. Egypt called for its return in 2006 when it became aware of its location in the St. Louis collection. At the last few days before the expiration of a statute of limitations, in 2011 the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri initiated a civil forfeiture action against the mask, seeking to intervene on Egypt's behalf. The result in the case for the federal government provides an unfortunate but helpful example of how the federal government should not be intervening into disputes over the illicit antiquities trade.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Investigating the trafficking of cultural objects: novel and interdisciplinary approaches   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage