The Embassy of Iraq requested assistance from the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and pertinent authorities to secure 107 cuneiform objects and 656 Jewish incantation bowls suspected of originating from Iraq, now in the possession of the Norwegian collector Martin Schøyen. The Iraqi embassy asserted that the objects are illicitly obtained and exported from Iraq, and hence acquired illegally by Schøyen.
On request, the Museum of Cultural History formally joined the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway (Økokrim) and participated in the police operation in August 2021 directed towards Martin Schøyen with the intention of seizing the artefacts.
During the search, a total of 83 of the requested objects were identified and seized. The artefacts were transported to the museum's premises at Økern for documentation and preparation for the museum’s assessment report. The 250 pages report was published on Regjeringen.no in March 2022.
In this seminar, Professor Håkon Roland at the Museum of Cultural History will outline the operation and the events that followed the publication of the museum’s assessment report. This is a story of entanglements of academia, law enforcement, national authorities, rich collectors and their lawyers, and media realities.
It is about academic freedom, and institutional support – and lack hereof. It is about Norwegian compliance to transnational regulations and how Norwegian authorities disclaimed responsibility towards a war-thorned Iraq. Provenance research, repatriation practices and investigation of policy networks lays the premises for ongoing research in the wake of the Schøyen seizure.