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From the Kaveri river to the West, back and forth: a museum born out of a translocated Hindu deity of origins

Virginie Olivier, Charlotte Schmid, Edmond de Taillac

I felt the time had come to collect all such mutilated and neglected pieces of art in stone and bronze and house them in a safe place in a palace at Tanjore [Thanjavur] in order to protect and preserve the remnants of our artistic inheritance from the ravages of time and the hands alike of the irreverent vandal and the unscrupulous pedlar in art-ware

T. K. Palaniappan 1982 (1953)

In 1951, a Chola dynasty museum, the “Thanjavur Art Gallery and Museum,” was born in the heart of the Tamil country, out of a striking statue spotted in a suburb of the city (Fig. 1). The size and refinement of this four-faced, four-armed god statue suggested a glorious past that was romanticized in the story of its discovery. The statue, which stopped being worshipped under unknown circumstances, was rescued from a canal in which the Kaveri river flowed; the valley of the latter defined the territory of the most famous dynasty of the Tamil country, the Cholas, in whose honor the museum was created. This representation of a rather peculiar deity was thus spared exile and became a catalyst for a museum offering neglected or stolen works of art the chance of a new life, as suggested by R. Davis (2018).

When the statue’s rediscovery sparked the interest of the North Indian Calcutta museum, local resistance prompted the then District Collector, T. K. Palaniappan, to propose a Thanjavur museum for housing high-quality, abandoned works of such type. Both the account of the discovery and local advocacy played a key role in instigating the creation of a museum around a statue that remains enigmatic even today and retains its unique aura.

The statue stands today at the centre of the Thanjavur Art Gallery and Museum’s central hall (Fig. 1), and is surrounded by 9th-13th century Chola sculptures. The label of the museum identifies it as “Brahma (the creator with four faces);” its faces turned in the four cardinal directions are actually apt to mark the birth of a place, and to symbolise the splendour of Chola art. However the scattering, since 1926, of pieces with the same iconography and workmanship, all from Thanjavur’s vicinity, have imbued this statue with emblematic significance far beyond its physical attributes (Figs. 2-5). The history of those pieces reveals complex dynamics, which combine colonial and post-colonial ties with the West, regional tensions within the young Indian nation, and the role of a French “comptoir,” namely Pondicherry, in amplifying the statue’s value. The latter clearly derived from the financial and symbolic prestige that translocation, as defined by Bénédicte Savoy (2024, p. 11-12), has conferred on the members of the group to which it belongs, a set of ten statues identified so far.

Fig. 1. The Brahmā-Śiva at the Thanjavur Art Gallery (no. 16), photo by Babu (N. Ramaswamy).

This group of ten from Thanjavur, carved from the same granite, exhibits a unique 9th-10th century style and iconography (Figs. 1–5). The four-headed, four-armed god sits on a lotus-throne, holding a lotus and rosary, with one hand in a fearlessness gesture and the other resting on his thigh. While the attributes suggest Brahmā, a third eye on the multiple foreheads of the statue is characteristic of Śiva (Fig. 2). Its presence raises identification questions, leading us to refer to these statues as Brahmā-Śiva.

Fig. 2. Detail of two of the heads of the Brahmā-Śiva of Kaṇṭiyūr, today exhibited in front of the old building of the District Collector Office, photo by V. Olivier.

This iconographic ambiguity has captivated Western audiences, reinforcing stereotypes of Eastern mysticism. Today, only five of the original group remain in India. Two are in Thanjavur: one in the Thanjavur Art Gallery and Museum (Fig. 1) and another in front of the District Collector’s colonial building (Fig. 2), originating from nearby Kaṇṭiyūr. A third Brahmā-Śiva is worshipped in Kaṇṭiyūr (Fig. 3), while a fourth stands in Centalai’s temple courtyard, one more settlement close to Thanjavur. The fifth, acquired by the National Museum in New Delhi in 1969, has an unclear provenance, but curator C. Sivaramamurti likely played a role in its transfer, given his earlier attempt to claim a similar statue for Calcutta’s museum.

Fig. 3. The Brahmā-Śiva of the temple of Kaṇṭiyūr, photo by C. Schmid.

The New Delhi Brahmā-Śiva reflects C. Sivaramamurti’s ongoing fascination with these statues, likely stimulated by Western interest. As curator of India’s pioneering museums in Madras and Calcutta, which were opened during the colonial period, and as director of the National Museum in New Delhi established after independence, Sivaramamurti would have known that five similar statues had been acquired by Western museums starting as early as 1926.

That very year, two sculptures were exported from India through a partnership between Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil (1885–1945), a French archaeologist living in Pondicherry and relying on a local Indian network based on his former students at the Colonial College in Pondicherry, as recently demonstrated by Edmond de Taillac, and Ching Tsai Loo (1880–1957), a Chinese art dealer based in Paris and New York. They collaborated with Joseph Hackin (1886–1941), a curator at the Musée Guimet, in a venture that blurred the lines between scientific research, colonial plunder, and exotic art trade – ensuing transactions were neither fully licit, nor completely illicit. This trio played a significant role in cultivating Western interest in Indian art, with Jouveau-Dubreuil becoming Loo’s acquisition agent for “des pièces (…) tout à fait exceptionnelles” (absolutely exceptional pieces) in 1924 (Letter from C. T. Loo to G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, dated July 9, 1924).

In the following years, the collaboration between Jouveau-Dubreuil, Hackin, and Loo led to a significant buildup of Indian art collections at the Musée Guimet and in the West, particularly in the United States, where the Chinese dealer operated a branch since 1915. Jouveau-Dubreuil would regularly ship sculptures from India to Paris, where Hackin would select pieces for the Musée Guimet or receive commissions of approximately one-third of revenues. C. T. Loo sold the other pieces to collectors and museums in the West.

In the second half of 1926, a batch including two Brahmā-Śiva reached Paris. “Nous avons eu successivement une épidémie de mères – puis une épidémie de Sivas à 4 têtes,” (we successively got an epidemic of mothers, followed by one of four-headed Sivas) writes G. Jouveau-Dubreuil to J. Hackin and C. T. Loo, on January 4, 1928.

None of the four-headed statues was selected for Guimet; and the pair of Brahmā-Śiva continued their journey to the United States, where the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York (Fig. 5), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired them in 1927. The Detroit Institute of Arts bought a third Brahmā-Śiva in 1928. Mrs John D. Rockfeller donated a fourth one to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1942 (Fig. 4) ; the Worcester Art Museum bought a fifth from a New York Asian art dealer in 1964. The Brahmā-Śiva that can be admired today at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Fig. 5) illustrates how these sculptures’ westward journey from the Chola capital had dramatically increased their value—if only in financial terms. This is the statue initially acquired by the Buffalo Museum. It was auctioned in 2007 for $4 million-plus dollars, a price rarely attained by any Indian sculpture.

Fig. 4. The Brahmā-Śiva in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (42.120), photo by C. Schmid.
Fig. 5. Brahmā-Śiva, 9th-10th c., Tamil Nadu. Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007.155. Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, this work was accepted in honor of Stanislaw Czuma in recognition of his long service to the CMA. © Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Brahmā-Śiva who welcomes the visitor in the Thanjavur Art Gallery showcases the Chola dynasty’s global reach far beyond its native land. In the 1930s, the great historian K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, writing a history of the Cholas, emphasised the colonisation of South-East Asia, which the dynasty claimed to have instigated. Faced with a British colonising power, he highlighted the Indian colonial impact on the area. Thanks to him, but also thanks to the translocation of Chola statues, facilitated by more or less conscious or willing agents like Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil, “corsaire archéologique pour la France,” (archaeological raider for France) as the man characterised himself in a letter to Joseph Hackin dated May 28, 1931, and with the help of a well-organised Indian network, the art dealer C. T. Loo, museum curators and private collectors, galleries and auction houses, Chola art’s reputation spread worldwide. The translocation of the Brahmā-Śiva has, in turn, heightened awareness and appreciation of a unique heritage.

Sources

Archives du musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet:

Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil, Correspondance 1926, 1927, 1928, file Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil.

Photographic archives, box titled: “Inde du Sud,”” Inde du Centre,” “Sculptures isolées.”

Références

Richard H. Davis, “New lives for Returned Images: The Family of Icons from Sripuranthan,” Marg 69, 2018, no. 3, p. 64–77.

Virginie Olivier, « Les Brahmā-Śiva de la région de Tanjore : un syncrétisme singulier aux origines inexpliquées », Arts Asiatiques 75, 2020, p. 5–26.

T. K. Palaniappan,  “A Year of Progress,” in The Divine Bronzes. The Thanjavur Art Gallery Bronze Sculptures, S. Rathnasabapathy (ed.), Thanjavur: Thanjavur Art Gallery Administration, 1982.

Bénédicte Savoy, À qui appartient la beauté, Paris : La Découverte, 2024..

An Iznik Tile, Greek Collectors, and the Appreciation of Asia Minor Pottery

Mina Moraitou

An unusual Iznik tile displayed at the Benaki Museum has an interesting acquisition history that dates back to the late Ottoman era. Its journey, from Berlin, Alexandria, and finally Athens, reflects an interconnected story of European collecting, concepts on Ottoman art and cultural exchange in the modern period.

The 17th-century octagonal Iznik tile depicts a walled enclosure, within which a series of domed buildings are set around a large, prominent tree (fig. 1). The building on the left, surmounted by three crosses, most likely represents a church, while the building on the right seems to represent a mosque. The composition is framed by two large red tulips and four unclear characters between the upper branches of the tree. The tile belongs to a broader artistic tradition associated with pilgrimage, offering a visual representation of a holy site.

Fig. 1. Octagonal tile, Iznik, second half of the 17th century, diam. 32,5 cm. Benaki Museum 87.

As one traces the story of this tile, its origins can be found within the Ottoman Empire, where it was acquired by Dr Kurt Zander (1860-1926), a Berlin-based government councillor and avid collector. Zander’s fascination with Oriental art began during his extensive travels, starting in the late 1880s. In 1896, he permanently moved to Istanbul, where he served as director of the Ottoman Anatolian Railway and headed the Commission of the Baghdad Line. Like many European collectors of his time, Zander was captivated by the perceived “exoticism” of the Orient. The 19th century witnessed a surge of European interest in the East. With growing exposure through trade, travel, diplomacy, and military campaigns, Europeans increasingly recognized the cultural and artistic richness of lands beyond their own. Oriental art became highly admired, and collecting such objects became a fashionable pursuit among the European elite.

Dr Zander’s collection, which steadily expanded throughout his lifetime, was auctioned in 1914, a year before his death. In the opening pages of the auction catalogue, it was noted that his frequent travels to the Orient had allowed him to acquire many remarkable art objects at a time when such treasures were still undervalued by European collectors. In the auction catalogue the tile was described as a remarkable 16th-century octagonal tile with red, blue, and green decoration, representing an Armenian church (Collection Dr Kurt Zander 1914, n° 417, p. 16). This description is particularly intriguing because, unlike other items in catalogue, it was not attributed to Iznik nor was an alternative provenance suggested (fig. 2). The possible reason for this lies in the challenges faced by 19th-century art experts in identifying the origins of Iznik ceramics. At the time, attribution was often based on inscriptions, themes of decoration, or the location where a piece was discovered. Publications from that period reveal how scholars and collectors often misattributed ceramics, assuming multiple production centers, such as Kütahya, Damascus, Rhodes or Iran, for what we now recognize as Iznik ceramics. In reality, these wares were predominantly produced in the town of Iznik in western Anatolia, a major centre of ceramic production during the height of the Ottoman Empire. The misattribution of ceramics reflects the evolving understanding of Islamic art during the 19th century as Western scholars gradually uncovered the full complexity of Ottoman artistic traditions and cultural influences (Moraitou 2017).

Fig. 2: Illustration page from the auction catalogue of Dr Kurt Zander’s collection. Benaki Museum Library.

Following the sale, the story leads to Alexandria, where the tile became part of the collection of Michael Sinadinos, a prominent figure in the city’s thriving Greek community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like many members of the Greek diaspora in Egypt, Sinadinos was deeply involved in trade and commerce. He also played a vital role in the cultural and social life of the Greek community, serving as president of the Greek Community of Alexandria from 1911 until his death in 1919. At the turn of the 20th century, Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city where cultural influences from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa converged. Within this vibrant urban environment, wealthy foreign residents, including many Greeks, became important patrons of the arts. Sinadinos was no exception, and he amassed a collection of Iznik tiles, including the octagonal tile. Whether he acquired the tile directly from the auction in Berlin or through one of Alexandria’s many antique dealers remains unclear.

The next step in the tile’s journey came with the inheritance of the Sinadinos tiles by his daughter, Maria, who was married to Alexandros Benakis a member of the Benaki family and an avid admirer of ceramics. His collection in Alexandria, which included both Chinese ceramics and around 100 pieces of Iznik pottery, became one of the foundations of what would later become the Benaki Museum’s Islamic collection. After his death in 1922, the tile was exhibited in Egypt’s first exhibition of Islamic art, which showcased items primarily from private collections (Migeon 1925, no. 4, p. 7; Migeon 1925, pl. 25). The exhibition, which opened to the public in 1925, was modelled on similar exhibitions in London and Paris. Around half of the exhibits were ceramics, and the catalogue noted that the selection of ceramics from Asia Minor—mostly Iznik—was particularly memorable (fig. 3 & 4).

Fig. 3 (Left), Pierre Racine, Exposition d’art musulman, Alexandria 1925 (Benaki Museum – Photographic Archives). Fig. 4 (Right), Cover of the exhibition’s catalogue (Benaki Museum – Library).

During the early 20th century, Greek collectors had developed a strong appreciation for Iznik ceramics. Although it may seem unusual for Greeks to be attracted to Ottoman art, some collectors, particularly those living in cosmopolitan centres like Alexandria, adopted the tastes of their European counterparts, who had long be fascinated by the arts of Asia. The familiarity and admiration for Iznik designs among Greek collectors could be traced back to the influence of these motifs on 19th-century Greek art, such as textiles, architectural decoration or woodwork.

After 1926 Antonis Benakis, Alexandros’ older brother and founder of the Benaki Museum, gradually relocated to Athens with the family’s art collection. Antonis had plans to establish a museum in Athens, and Iznik ceramics were one of the highlights of this vision. In a 1927 letter to George Eumorfopoulos, a leading collector of Chinese art, Antonis mentioned that the ceramics his late brother Alexandros had gathered would form the core of the museum he was planning and intended to donate to the Greek nation. When the museum opened in 1931, the tile was part of the Islamic collection, which was housed in two galleries on the ground floor and today it is exhibited among the rest of the Iznik collection at the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art.

References

Collection Dr. Kurt Zander geh. Regierungsrat Berlin: Art Mahométan tapis persans faïences et arts textiles de l’Orient, manuscrits persans. Sculptures Grecques et Romaines terres cuites. Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1914.

Gaston Migeon, Exposition d’art musulman, Les Amis de l’art, exhibition catalogue, Alexandria : Grammata, 1925.

Gaston Migeon, Exposition d’art musulman, Les Amis de l’art, album, Paris : Albert Morancé, 1925.

Mina Moraitou, Iznik a fascination with ceramics, exhibition catalogue, Athens : Benaki Museum, 2017.


Of Cycladic Figurines and the Landscape: Tales from the Aegean Sea

Stelios Lekakis

The bibliography on looting in Greece has grown significantly over the last two decades (Chippindale and Gill 2000; Brodie 2014). The exposure of the international criminal network trading in looted antiquities, following the accidental death of Christos Michailidis in 1999 and the prosecution of his partner, Robin Symes, led to a more systematic understanding of this complex phenomenon. This has shed light on the convoluted processes of illicit smuggling, storing, selling, buying, and collecting ancient materials (Apostolides 2006; Watson and Todeschini 2007).

Despite these developments offering insights into international trafficking and the role of auction houses and museums, they have done little to uncover the local dynamics of looting or its impact on communities in the Aegean. Even the term “looting” (αρχαιοκαπηλία in Greek) frames the issue from a legal perspective, overlooking the rich cultural values tied to the discovery, excavation, sale, mediation, or even forgery of antiquities (Lekakis 2006; Antoniadou 2014; Tsirogiannis 2022).

Postcard sent by Foteini Zapheiropoulou, while excavating in Naxos in the 1960s.

Fig. 1. Postcard sent by Foteini Zapheiropoulou, while excavating in Naxos in the 1960s. In a remarkable shift in meaning, she notes how locals referred to “archaeologists” as “looters,” while calling actual looters the “state archaeologists” (Lekakis 2013, p. 267–69).

This post focuses on these often overlooked aspects of the looting phenomenon, particularly the role of finders and local mediators of Cycladic figurines. These prehistoric curiosities feature since long in a number of European museums, but were initially excluded from the canon of Western Hellenicity, because they were seen as ‘ugly’ and ‘barbaric,’ until primitivism elevated them to the status of masterpieces after WWII. The newfound appreciation fueled a collecting boom and created a substantial commercial market in the 1960s, leading to the looting of an estimated 12,000 Early Cycladic graves. Significant loss of data ensued, making it challenging to understand the figurines’ chronology, significance, or use, as well as the sites from which they originated. (Gill & Chippindale 1993, p. 602).

Cycladic figurines on a Greek passport

Fig. 2. Cycladic figurines on a Greek passport—an ironic symbol for one of the most ‘well-traveled’ antiquities from Greece.

On the Cycladic islands, the discovery of marble figurines, known locally as koukloi (κούκλοι) or kouklakia (κουκλάκια)(dolls), has been documented since at least the 18th century (Lekakis 2013, p. 267). Initially, finders, unaware of their economic value, gave the figurines to children as toys or sold them to interested travelers. By the 1960s, however, this casual exchange gave way to more systematic looting, particularly on Naxos and other Cycladic islands, driven by their newfound appeal to modern art. The figurines were hailed for their minimalistic lines and clear forms – especially since artists could only distinguish the elegance of form and not the exuberant painted details commonly washed off after been buried for centuries (Doumas 2002).

Christos Doumas, then the deputy Ephor for Naxos, recounted the sophisticated looting practices centered around Early Cycladic antiquities (Doumas 2013). The village of Apeiranthos, in particular, became notorious for organized looting and trading of Protocycladic marble artifacts, from Naxos and the surrounding islands, especially Paros, Keros, Koufonissia, Amorgos, Schoinoussa, Irakleia, Ios, Sikinos and Folegandros. The –at least two– gangs of looters operated in full moon, conducting illicit excavations primarily after autumn rains, when the soil was easier to dig. Sometimes the dig would reach the depth of one meter, making the field appear well tended and ready to be planted. For that reason, Doumas mentions that such illicit excavations were funded by agricultural loans, provided to favourites by officials. The only proof would be the broken cover of the Early Cycladic graves that were afterwards build on the drystone walls of the fields. If caught, looters would turn to their governmental affiliations for pardon.

However, apart from the organised gangs, other locals occasionally recovered antiquities and Cycladic figurines during agricultural work. In such cases, ‘findings’ qualified as ‘vresimata’ (βρεσιμάτα), a word equivalent to treasure – without always the monetary aspects of it. Findings are commonly understood as the product of one’s interaction with the natural landscape, a comparable but more valuable fruit of labour to a sack of potatoes. They can be randomly encountered or even emerge from the landscape on their own volition. In all cases, the landscape is animated, enchanted and has a potent agency (Stewart 2001). It reveals and it conceals, and it can also be evoked through intricate processes of what can be described as ‘occult archaeology’ –involving dreaming, story-telling and rituals– an uncanny, pre-modern archaeology that can grant access to the resources. These processes feature heavily in oral history and folk tales in the Aegean, involving multiple ways of dealing with landscape creatures associated with ‘vresimata’ to tame, trick or give back to and finally manage to keep the ‘vresimo’ for oneself.

Once the antiquity would have been secured, i.e. retrieved from the landscape domain, by an individual or sometimes the contribution of various people or the whole of the village, the ‘crop’ notion settled. The antiquity was owned, as a crop would be, and could be used. In some cases, figurines retained their magic force, as elements from another time and space and had otherworldly or more than human power to protect against things that could not be rationalised. They would be placed above the house entrance, as apotropaic symbols, to avert the evil eye, as in a case from the settlement of Grotta, Naxos (Gill & Chippindale 1993, p. 647).

In other more practical cases, they would be used to complement the house income by selling it to a gang associate or to a local mediator. In a case near Agiassos Bay, this was the local baker known to collect, transport inside loafs of bread, and then distribute profits ‘by the centimetre’ of the find (‘με τον πόντο’).

Display of Cycladic objects at Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe (2007)

Fig. 3. Display of Cycladic objects at Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe (2007) (author’s photograph).

As mentioned, crop mentality was prevalent in Cyclades, so material found their ways to various museums of Europe. Instead of hiring more archaeologists or embark on a public awareness campaign for the material and intellectual consequences of illicit digging, the Greek state urged affluent shipowners to buy so to prevent antiquities bleeding abroad. People of Naxos still remember the yacht of Goulandris to Spedos Bay buying looted figurines from the locals, ‘by the centimetre’.

Display of cycladic objects at Altes Museum, Berlin (2007)

Fig. 4. Display of Cycladic objects at Altes Museum, Berlin (2007) (author’s photograph)

Even though, ineffective state policies for culture and the public could be the theme for another (rather long) piece, one cannot fail to mention the recent, contested legitimisation of the Stern collection by the Greek Ministry of Culture. In an act considered as a policy backslide in the expressed target to fight the illicit trade, the ministry accepted the return of 161 Cycladic antiquities from the American collector Leonard Stern (Homecoming was the name of the related exhibition organised in 2023 by the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens), comprised of numerous figurines of unregistered origin but also numerous fakes, tacitly legitimizing their illicit provenance. By recognizing Stern as a ‘donor’ rather than reclaiming the artifacts as looted heritage, the Ministry weakened Greece’s stance against antiquities trafficking, setting a problematic precedent for future restitutions (YPPO 2024).

Funerary items, fertility goddesses, symbols of modernity but also crops and apotropaic symbols to avert otherworldly forces, Early Cycladic figurines still enchant and remind us how meaning can be lost if communities are not involved in its production.

 

References

Ioanna Antoniadou, “Looting deconstructed: a study of non-professional engagements with the material past in Kozani, Greece.” PhD diss., University of Southampton, 2014.

Andreas Apostolides, Αρχαιοκαπηλία και εμπόριο αρχαιοτήτων: μουσεία, έμποροι τέχνης, οίκοι δημοπρασιών, ιδιωτικές συλλογές [Looting and the antiquities market: museums, art dealers, auction houses, private collections]. Εκδόσεις Άγρα, 2006.

Neil Brodie, “The antiquities market: It’s all in a price.” Heritage & Society 7, no. 1, 2014, p. 32-46.

Christopher Chippindale and David W J Gill. “Material consequences of contemporary classical collecting.” American journal of archaeology 104, no. 3, 2000, p. 463-511.

Christos Doumas,  Joan R. Mertens, and S. Alexander. Silent witnesses: early Cycladic art of the third millennium BC, New York : Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, 2002.

Christos Doumas, “Πρόσωπα, πράγματα και συμπεριφορές στη Νάξο των αρχών της δεκαετίας του 1960 [People, things, and behaviors in Naxos in the early 1960s]”. Αληθινά Παραμύθια της Νάξου, 2013, p. 9-22.

David WJ Gill and Christopher Chippindale. “Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for Cycladic figures.” American journal of archaeology 97, no. 4, 1993, p. 601-659.

Stelios Lekakis, “Αρχαιοκαπηλία και τοπικές κοινωνίες. Η περίπτωση των Κυκλάδων το 18ο και 19ο αιώνα.[ Looting and local communities. The case of Cyclades in the 18th and 19th centuries],” Ναξιακά 20, no. 58, 2006, p. 7-19.

Stelios Lekakis, “Κοινωνικές και οικονομικές οπτικές της πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς: η διαχείριση σε τοπικό επίπεδο: η περίπτωση του Αιγαίου και της νήσου Νάξου. [Social and economic perspectives on cultural heritage: locallevel management the case of the Aegean and the island of Naxos]” PhD diss., Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών (ΕΚΠΑ). Σχολή Φιλοσοφική. Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, 2013.

Stelios Lekakis and Mina Dragouni, “Heritage in the making: Rural heritage and its mnemeiosis at Naxos island, Greece.” Journal of Rural Studies 77, 2020, p. 84-92.

Marisa Marthari, “Altering information from the past: illegal excavations in Greece and the case of the Early Bronze Age Cyclades,” In Neil Brodie et al., Trade in illicit antiquities: the destruction of the world’s archaeological heritage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 161-172.

Charles Stewart, Demons and the devil: moral imagination in modern Greek culture. Vol. 8. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.

YPPO ,“ΥΠΠΟ: Η συλλογή Στέρν εκτίθεται ως δάνειο της Ελλάδας στο Μητροπολιτικό Μουσείο της Νέας Υόρκης” [Ministry of Culture : the Stern collection exhibited as loan of Greece to the MET in New York], 2024

Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini, The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities-From Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest Museum. New York: Public Affairs, 2007.

Des cuivres mamelouks (XIVe-XVe s.) au nord du Ghana

Hadrien Collet

En 1980, l’historien de l’art Raymond A. Silverman put documenter six pièces de vaisselle en cuivre ornementées d’inscriptions calligraphiées en arabe dans le nord du Ghana actuel et dont certaines avaient déjà été signalées par la littérature d’époque coloniale au début du XXe siècle. Il soutint sa thèse en 1983 avec un sujet évaluant l’impact de l’islam sur la culture matérielle des Akan, terme désignant un ensemble de groupes apparentés linguistiquement et dont les terres ont abrité historiquement de formidables gisements aurifères. Aujourd’hui professeur à l’Université du Michigan, Raymond Silverman est revenu dans plusieurs publications récentes sur la présence de ces bassines mameloukes, cette fois dans le cadre théorique de la biographie culturelle des objets. Son travail s’inscrit dans le courant méthodologique façonné par le séminal The Social Life of Things : Commodities in Cultural Perspective (1986) dirigé par l’anthropologue Arjun Appadurai, et s’appuie sur l’une des contributions d’Igor Kopytoff dans ce volume, « The Cultural Biography of Things : Commoditization as Process ». Il s’agit là de travaux méconnus en France, qui intéresseront les historiens de l’Afrique médiévale, du Ghana à l’Égypte, lesquels pensent les phénomènes dans la longue durée.

Je retiendrai deux de ces bassines ici, situées dans la localité de Nsoko (ou Nsawkaw), importante place marchande entre le XIVe et le XVIIe siècle et interface entre les champs aurifères de l’espace Akan et les marchands musulmans qui faisaient remonter l’or vers les États islamiques du Sahel.

Fig. 1. Bassine portant des inscriptions arabes dite « Ayaa Kenten » photographiée à Nsoko en février 1980 par Raymond Silverman (Silverman, «Material Biographies: Saharan Trade and the Lives of Objects in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century West Africa », History in Africa 42, 2015, p. 380).

Fig. 2. Bol portant des inscriptions arabes, photographié à Nsoko par Raymond Silverman en février 1980 (Silverman, « Material Biographies: Saharan Trade and the Lives of Objects in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century West Africa », History in Africa 42, 2015, p. 382).

Fig. 3. Carte du Ghana (Silverman, « Material Biographies: Saharan Trade and the Lives of Objects in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century West Africa », History in Africa 42, 2015, p. 377).

Le travail du cuivre faisait partie du fleuron artisanal de l’Empire mamelouk, dont les marchés du Caire furent renommés dans le monde entier pendant les trois derniers siècles de la période médiévale. Certaines pièces de grandes dimensions, aux ornementations présentant un haut degré de raffinement, parfois incrustées d’argent et d’or, étaient commandées par les puissants, comme le bol présenté ci-dessus (Fig. 2) le montre. L’inscription, encore lisible, signale que le bol a appartenu à Tāqī al-Dīn Khushkaldī, dawādār, littéralement porteur de l’encrier, c’est-à-dire secrétaire particulier, d’al-Malik al-Ẓāhir. Silverman interprète ce nom comme étant celui du sultan al-Ẓāhir Jaqmaq (r. 1438-1453), mais il renvoie plutôt au premier grand sultan circassien, al-Malik al-Zāhir Barqūq (r. 1382-1399). Ces biens de prestige furent en réalité produits massivement et étaient vendus sur les marchés, hormis les commandes particulières de plus haute tenue où l’on gravait le nom du commanditaire. Encore aujourd’hui, les salles de vente aux enchères parisiennes, et autres maisons internationales, proposent régulièrement des artéfacts de cet artisanat des naḥḥāsīn, les dinandiers d’Égypte et de Syrie. Ces objets servaient différents usages : ils venaient garnir les dots, recevaient nourriture et boisson ou étaient utilisés comme récipient pour l’eau, pour les ablutions par exemple.

Leur passage de l’Égypte à l’Afrique de l’Ouest n’est pas clair. Aussi, Silverman propose plusieurs hypothèses. Les objets nominatifs ont pu finir sur les étals des marchés à la suite des épidémies de peste qui frappèrent l’Orient à partir de 1347, car des familles entières furent laissées sans héritiers. La tumultueuse vie politique mamelouke, et les nombreuses disgrâces qu’elle entraînait, donnait lieu à des confiscations fréquentes et à la liquidation des biens de certains amīrs. Toutefois, il ne faut pas oublier que les caravanes provenant d’Afrique de l’Ouest venaient presque annuellement au Caire à l’époque mamelouke pour se rendre ensuite à La Mecque. Ces objets en cuivre imposants pouvaient donc être achetés par les élites sahéliennes ou être reçus en cadeaux.

Je me permets ici d’intervenir dans le récit de Silverman car il manque une étape importante dans la biographie culturelle de ces objets, leur passage du Sahel à la zone forestière plus au sud et la cause de celui-ci. Le cuivre tenait en effet une place centrale dans l’économie des États sahéliens médiévaux qui en importaient d’immenses quantités, surtout du laiton sous forme brute, pour compléter les gisements disponibles localement qui consistaient surtout en du cuivre rouge. Le cuivre servait en effet de monnaie d’échange auprès des populations extractrices de l’or, qui, pour des raisons religieuses et spirituelles, préféraient le cuivre à l’or. Les objets manufacturés, comme les bassines et les bols mamelouks, avaient la double fonction de biens de prestige et de monnaies dont le cours était très élevé. Je renvoie à ce propos aux travaux de Laurence Garenne-Marot qui a consacré de nombreux articles à la question du cuivre dans l’économie médiévale ouest-africaine.

Venons-en à présent au début des années 1980 quand Raymond Silverman put documenter ces objets dans leur contexte ghanéen. Les histoires orales attachées aux bassines mameloukes témoignent alors d’une rupture mémorielle importante et d’une création narrative originale pour que ces objets singuliers continuent de faire sens pour les communautés qui en avaient hérité. La bassine appelée « Ayaa Kenten » (le panier de cuivre) (Fig.1), est tenue pour être descendue du Ciel suite à un cadeau offert par Nyame (Dieu). D’autres bassines et bols ont des récits surnaturels attachés à leur origine, comme des héros fondateurs qui les auraient portés lorsqu’ils migrèrent vers la surface de la terre et quittèrent un monde souterrain mythique. Ainsi le bol (Fig.2) est tenu pour avoir surgi d’un lieu-seuil situé à Begho, localité abandonnée voisine de Nsoko et associée avec elle à la prestigieuse histoire du commerce de l’or. Demeure donc un lien, même ténu, avec le contexte historique de la provenance : le grand commerce transsaharien de l’or et du cuivre dont les routes se prolongeaient loin au sud du désert.

Les cuivres mamelouks acquirent ainsi un statut d’objet sacré dans les religions locales qui les utilisaient par exemple dans les rituels pour faire tomber la pluie ou comme réceptacles d’une mémoire liée à des événements historiques et des personnages importants. Il est en effet à souligner que le Ghana contemporain, bien qu’il soit un exemple de lieu où vinrent se toucher les deux lignes de front historiques de progression de l’islam et du christianisme, a conservé nombre de ses autres cultes, notamment en pays Akan. Ces religions sont toutefois en recul ou en voie de transition, de la sphère cultuelle vers la sphère culturelle. Si Silverman souligne que ces cuivres mamelouks calligraphiés inspirèrent les modèles d’un artisanat du cuivre qui se développa dans la région, il remarque néanmoins que la dimension sacrée dont ils avaient été investis est en train de disparaître. Lorsqu’il retourna à Nsoko en 2001, il apprit que «l’Ayaa Kenten » avait été volée quelques temps auparavant. Ce fut le cas aussi d’autres objets en cuivre qu’il avait étudiés au début des années 1980 et qu’il voulut revoir en 2011. Ses interlocuteurs postulèrent que le motif du forfait était la revente des objets pour le prix du métal, signe de l’atrophie de l’aura surnaturelle qu’on leur prêtait et qui permettait auparavant de les laisser sans protection ni surveillance. Il fallait désormais les mettre sous clefs.

Cela conclut, pour le moment, le singulier destin de ces objets, qui sont passés successivement de l’état de matière première monétisable (au sens de pouvoir être échangé contre de l’argent ou bien de servir elle-même directement de monnaie) ou modelable, à celui de biens de prestige dans le cadre de dons ou de transactions, puis à celui d’objets sacrés réceptacles de manifestations surnaturelles ou de récits étiologiques et, enfin, à nouveau à celui de matière première monétisable.

La signification conférée à une chose matérielle dépend ainsi toujours d’un contexte et change sans cesse à travers l’espace et le temps.

Pour aller plus loin:

Collet, Hadrien, Houssaye-Michienzi, Ingrid, « Le Touat dans la globalité médiévale. Itinéraire d’une cargaison de cuivre du royaume de Hongrie au sultanat du Mālī (1407-08) », Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée 149, 2021, p. 53-78.

Garenne-Marot, Laurence, « Au-delà de la patine des objets en métal à base de cuivre : couleur et valeur du cuivre en Afrique de l’Ouest à l’époque du commerce transsaharien musulman », Cahier des thèmes transversaux ArScAn VIII, 2006-2007, p. 118-132.

Silverman, Raymond, « Material Biographies: Saharan Trade and the Lives of Objects in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century West Africa », History in Africa 42, 2015, p. 375-395.

Silverman, Raymond, « Red Gold. Things Made of Copper, Bronze, and Brass », Berzock, Kathleen (éd.), Caravan of Gold, Fragments in Time. Art, culture, and exchange across medieval Saharan Africa, Oxford, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2019, p. 257-268.