Press Statement 17th March 2016

PRESS STATEMENT FROM THE SAVE SEKHEMKA ACTION GROUP 17 MARCH 2016

In July 2014 a unique part of the World’s shared cultural heritage, the beautiful, four thousand year
old statue of the Egyptian Scribe Sekhemka, was privatised and locked away from view thanks to the
unethical actions of David Mackintosh MP, Northampton Borough Council and the, apparently,
morality free auction industry who, ignoring ethical objections, put the importance of obtaining a
world record price for an internationally important museum piece over the retention of it in a
museum for everyone to enjoy.

On 29 March 2016 the Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, and his accomplice, Ed Vaizey, will lift
the temporary export ban the Department of Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) placed on the
Sekhemka statue and it will almost certainly disappear from public view, possibly forever.
In all that time, as far as we are aware, there has been no effort by the British Government or any
British institution or museum to negotiate a loan with the anonymous purchaser to ensure the
statue finds a secure and permanent home in the UK.

This fact surely shows how totally unfit for purpose the current Export Ban system is. The Secretary
of State is able to impose a Temporary Export Ban because an object is seen as of national
importance, but can then happily sit back and do precisely nothing to ensure that such importance is
being recognised by the object being saved for the nation.

This willing impotence is even more unacceptable when all relevant bodies, including the
Government’s own statutory advisers such as Arts Council England, agree that the sale of Sekhemka
was utterly unethical and should never have taken place, particularly as there remain unresolved
legal questions surrounding the sale.

The Sekhemka Action Group has noted the gallant appeal by the Egyptian Ambassador to wealthy
Egyptians asking them to raise funds to repurchase Sekhemka; if this succeeds the statue would be
on display in Egypt for six months of the year and then in the UK for the next six months.

The offer is especially generous because the sale of Sekhemka has damaged the British reputation in
Egypt, suggesting to Egyptians that Britain’s comments that it seeks to stamp out trafficking in
antiquities are just public relations and that Egyptian Cultural objects are nothing more than a
cheque to be cashed at the bank.

However, the Save Sekhemka Action Group maintains that such a repurchase would be unethical
and unhelpful since the statue should not have been sold in the first place.

We also believe that a repurchase would send strong signals to other museums and institutions that
selling a valuable artefact would be acceptable since there would be the expectation that there will
always be somebody who would stump up the cash to repurchase it for the nation.

We are therefore resigned to the likelihood that we will never see this wonderful statue again and
that this stage of our fight to “rescue” Sekhemka and return him to a free public gallery is over.
However, this does not mean that we will shrink into a corner doing nothing. Our anger and
frustration at a broken system and the people, who either exploited it or who stood by wringing
their hands, crying crocodile tears but doing nothing to prevent that exploitation, requires that we
do not.

We recognise that the British museum world is in dire straits and, based on our experience with
Sekhemka and the numerous other cases of museum closures and object disposal, any attempt to
rescue it is not going to be led by the Department of Culture, Media and Sports, Arts Council England  or the Museums Association. These bodies have demonstrated no practical initiative or leadership at a time when we are faced by unaccountable elites who can close or reassign a collection from one part of the country to another (usually London) at will, and supposedly accountable politicians who are quite happy to ride rough shod over ethics and even legal questions, to cash in and destroy overnight collections, museums and galleries which have taken decades if not centuries to build up. With Arts Council England and the Museums Association ultimately toothless in the absence of either the legal tools or the corporate will to protect the nation’s heritage it is up to us, ordinary people, to try to stop the cultural rot before all trace of the past disappears and with that the chance to show our children what we can be and what wonders we can create.

In that belief there is hope. All over the country people are fighting back against the attempts to create cultural wastelands in the name of austerity and efficiency and we feel that our experience from the Sekhemka campaign would benefit these various campaigns. For that reason we intend constituting ourselves into a new campaign group and return to the fight.

Sekhemka was a battle, not the entire war, which is far from over.


Gunilla Loe, Chair

On behalf of
the Save Sekhemka Action Group, Great Britain
and
the Save Sekhemka Action Group, Egypt

The Extension of the Export Ban on the Statue of Sekhemka

Press Statement from the Save Sekhemka Action Groups, UK and Egypt

The Action Groups are delighted to learn that the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and its Secretary of State, the Hon John Whittingdale MP, and its Minister for Arts, the Hon Ed Vaizey MP, have seen cultural sense by extending the Export Ban on the Sekhemka statue until 29 March 2016, thus hopefully ensuring that it remains in the UK.

We will continue to monitor the situation.  Meanwhile we sincerely hope that negotiations with the, as yet, anonymous buyer and the current owner of Sekhemka  will bear fruit and that one of the UK’s major museums will give the statue a new home – perhaps even the new museum complex proposed for the Olympic Park !

We also hope that this decision will discourage small and large museums from selling off their treasures and that there will be a way forward for the museum world in conjunction with the DCMS, Arts Council England and the Museums Association to KEEP collections intact for the enjoyment and education of future generations.  We wish the museum world strength and tenacity making this possible in true co-operation with each other.

This decision also sends a very strong international message: the UK and its government will not stand idly by tolerating illegal sales of looted artefacts, smuggling of artefacts or laundering of money rather the UK will adhere to the strong ICOM ethics that enable our world heritage to remain intact.
The Action Groups wish to thank all their supporters and we are glad we stayed with the “fight” to save Sekhemka which we now hope will benefit the rest of the museum world and our heritage.  We owe this to our future generations.


Gunilla Loe
On behalf of the Save Sekhemka Action Groups, UK and Egypt

Press Statement : September 1st 2015

PRESS STATEMENT TO BRITISH AUTHORITIES ON ANTIQUITIES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

 

It is the right of all nations to be able to look and see the works of human civilisations and gain knowledge from the human history of civilisation.  To be able to watch the sequence effects that reflect the cultures and history of all States.

 

The sale of Sekhemka is a crime against humanity in the right of the world and the Egyptian people.  The authorities in charge of Northampton Museum have blocked the Pharaonic civilisation from the eyes of the world by selling the statue of Sekhemka in an auction in order to raise funds to expand the museum.  For the Museum to be trading in antiquities for financial gain is a humanitarian disaster and an event which should never have happened in the history of museums.

 

The selling of Sekhemka is a major crime against the people of the world.  Selling the statue to an anonymous buyer and moving the statue to an unknown place means that the whole world will be deprived of the knowledge of the ancient Egyptian civilisation, which is considered a crime against humanity.

 

The Save Sekhemka Group London and Egypt ask the intervention of all organisations concerned with human rights in Britain to help reverse the contract of the Sekhemka sale  and to put the statue on display in a museum in Britain to show the public around the world what Pharaonic civilisation is.  If the statue is not of any importance to Northampton Museum, the statue is the right and property of the Egyptian people and then ethically the Sekhemka statue MUST be returned back to its homeland and placed in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square for Egyptians and the tourists visiting Egypt to see the Pharaonic civilisation.

 

The Save Sekhemka Action Group London and Egypt

 

 

 

PRESS STATEMENT TO THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT, ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND AND THE BRITISH MUSEUM COMMUNITY

 

It is the human right of all nations to be able to see, enjoy and learn from the products of human history and civilisation.

 

Thus the sale of the Sekhemka statue by the Northampton Borough Council is in its way a crime against humanity.  By selling the statue, which was held in trust for the public in the Northampton Museum, Northampton Council has denied the world a jewel of Pharaonic civilisation.  What is worse, in taking on the role of antiquities dealer Northampton Council has engineered a disaster for the international museum community, diminishing the trust of the public in all our museums and encouraging those who use antiquities as commodities to be cashed in for gain.  Even those criminals and terrorists who would loot, traffic and sell the birth right of nations to raise funds and launder dirty money.

 

If the selling of Sekhemka, a unique and irreplaceable wonder of Egyptian Art and Culture, is a major crime against the people of the world and puts other antiquities in danger, selling the statue to an anonymous buyer compounds the crime.  This action moves Sekhemka from the world of a living museum where the statue can be seen and enjoyed to unknown place which deprives the world of the knowledge embodied by Sekhemka.

 

The Save Sekhemka Action Group in Northampton with its fellow campaigners in London and Egypt ask the intervention of all individuals and organisations with an interest in the enjoyment and celebration of the diverse cultures of the world to uphold the Human Right of the public to see Sekhemka as was always intended by those who originally placed the statue in Northampton Museum.

 

A way must be found to keep Sekhemka on display in a museum in Britain to show the public around the world what a glory the Pharaonic civilisation of Egypt represents.

 

If the UK Government, Arts Council England and the UK Museum Community cannot come up with such a solution, then the Sekhemka statue MUST be returned to its homeland of Egypt and placed in an Egyptian Museum for the pleasure and education of tourists visiting Egypt and the modern custodians of Egypt’s culture, the Egyptian people.

 

The Ancient Egyptians believed that a person lived as long as their name was remembered.  It is now up to the British Government, Arts Council England and the Museum Community, to decide how Sekhemka’s name is to be remembered:  as a shining name to be shared with the world or as a name forevere tarnsihed with the stain of ignorance and greed dragging down the names of those who allowed this cultural crime to happen.

 

The Save Sekhemka Action Group UK with the London and Egypt Groups

Dr Asaad in Palmyra

We are sadded and upset at the execution of Dr Asaad in Palmyra. He was killed because he regarded the archaeological treasures of his homeland as more important than his life and how important this makes our fight to keep Sekhemka safe in order not to encourage looting, illegal selling and smuggling of antiquities to raise money for those involved in civil wars. We are lucky to be able to protest in a peaceful country and that we admire and respect all our academic fellows in war torn countries who daily risk life and limb to preserve their cultures for future generations.

Details about Dr Asaad can be found here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis-beheads-archaeologist-syria

Export ban expiry imminent but it is not too late.... yet

DAVID CAMERON, IT IS NOT TOO LATE FOR YOU TO STEP IN AND PREVENT A CULTURAL CRIME WHICH ONLY AIDS THE SO CALLED ISLAMIC STATE AND OTHER CRIMINALS  WHO SEEK TO TRAFFIC ANCIENT ART AND ANTIQUITIES.

On 10 July 2014 the statue of the Ancient Egyptian civil servant Sekhemka, one of the jewels of Egyptian and World Art was sold to an anonymous buyer at Christie's in London for £15.76 million.  The sale of this irreplaceable part of the museum collection held in care for the public by Northampton Council was opposed by the Arts Council, the Museums Association, the Art Fund, and the International Council of Museums, as well as local people in Northampton [1].  

In just five days time on July 29 2015, a temporary export ban, placed on the statue by Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, will expire and the buyer will be free to obtain an export licence and send Sekhemka anywhere in the world, possibly never to be seen in public again.

One of the principle reason for the international opposition to the sale was the increasing evidence that such sales benefit no-one except the international auction houses who see their profits increased and international terrorists and criminal gangs who fund their activities by trafficking and selling art and archaeological artefacts like the statue of Sekhemka.  If auction house prices rise, so do the profits of the criminal and terrorist traffickers and forgers [2] .

However, it is still not too late for you to turn Britain's shame in being party to such an unethical sale into pride at Britain working with the Egyptian people to make amends for this indelible stain on Britain's cultural reputation.  

We are asking you to make an urgent public intervention with Christie's and the buyer of the Sekhemka statue and ask the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to broker a binding agreement whereby the statue remains in the UK on free public display in a British museum.

We are also asking you to make clear that you deplore the sale of publicly held museum collections for profit in a way which can only drive up the prices and the rewards for such unethical behaviour.

The only thing preventing such an intervention is the will of the British Government to be seen to do the right thing, while your intervention will not just preserve a beautiful and uniquely evocative example of Egypt's ancient art and culture for the public and visitors to Britain to enjoy.  It will send a message that Britain cares about the cultural jewels it has in its care and will not in future allow them to be exploited for short term gain in a way which only encourages criminals, traffickers and terrorists to set out to loot and sell more.

 

NOTES

1.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-28257714

2.  https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/digging-in-and-trafficking-out-how-the-destruction-of-cultural-heritage-funds-terrorism

     http://traffickingculture.org/publications/auction-houses-and-the-antiquities-trade/

     https://www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E559574F574163/

     https://conflictantiquities.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/iraq-syria-islamic-state-conflict-antiquities-trafficking-forgery/

Sekhemka Export Ban Statement

STATEMENT FROM THE SAVE SEKHEMKA ACTION GROUP
re the TEMPORARY EXPORT BAN FOR THE SEKHEMKA STATUE

 

Following the Temporary Export ban imposed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Save Sekhemka Action Group are campaigning for an agreement whereby the buyer of the internationally important Egyptian Statue,  sold by Northampton Borough Council in 2014,  loans the statue to a major UK Museum where it can be once again placed on public display.

 

We will also continue our investigations into the legality of the original sale.

 

Background to the statement

In July 2014 the then Leader of Northampton Borough Council (NBC), Councillor David Mackintosh [i], defied national and international advice and breached internationally held codes of museum ethics to sell Northampton’s equivalent to the Elgin Marbles, the 4,500 years old statue of the Egyptian Royal Scribe, Sekhemka, by auction at Christie’s in London.  The statue was sold to an unknown overseas buyer who paid a World Record Price of £15.76 million.[ii] 

The Department of Culture, Media and Sports has now clamped a temporary ban on the export of the statue.[iii] Such a temporary ban is meant to help groups who wish to retain the statue in the UK to either raise funds for its purchase, or to come up with other plans to enable the statue to be retained on public display in the UK.

The Save Sekhemka Action Group [SSAG] have opposed the sale since October 2012 when it first became clear that the protests and warnings from the Friends of Northampton Museums & Art Gallery (FNMAG) would be ignored by Cllr Mackintosh and NBC.  FNMAG and the Action Group repeatedly warned that the accreditation of Northampton’s museums would be lost and with it access all outside funding which required accreditation, including the Heritage Lottery Fund.  We were right.  Accreditation was stripped from Northampton’s Museums immediately after the sale and the Borough has already missed out on tens of thousands of pounds in grant funding.[iv]

We objected to the commercial sale of the statue of Sekhemka because it was immoral, unethical and unprofessional.  However, our research also leads us to suggest the legality of the sale is also doubtful.  The Deed of Gift of 1880 under which Sekhemka and other Egyptian artefacts as well as geological collections were given to Northampton Corporation by the 4^th Marquis of Northampton made the gift on condition they were always on display and never sold –in either case the collections would then revert to the Compton family.  Thus Sekhemka  may not even have been NBC’s to sell

Given the very serious legal and ethical questions which continue to cloud the sale of Sekhemka, the Save Sekhemka Action Group intend to tackle the present issue on three fronts:

a) We will NOT be part of ANY fundraising attempt to buy the statue from the present owner.

To do so would be to risk giving legitimacy to similar sales contemplated by other Local Authorities.  Instead we advocate the negotiation of a LONG TERM LOAN of the statue to one of the UK’s major museums where it can be seen at all times by the public and where it will be cared for properly.  We will actively pursue this aim with Arts Council England, the Museums Association, the Art Fund, and all relevant professional museum bodies

 

b) We will also seek to establish once and for all the legality of the sale.

We will do this through our research into the records in Egypt in order to ascertain whether the statue was legally exported in 1850, and into the records of Northampton Borough Council to expose the legal and financial arrangements Cllr Mackintosh reached with the Marquis of Northampton.

 

c) We will also ask DCMS and Arts Council England to investigate whether Northampton Borough Council misled Christie’s as to the true ownership of the statue and whether Christie’s undertook due diligence in accepting the artefact for sale. 

Northampton Borough Council claimed to be the owner of the statue on the sale agreement with Christie’s and a senior NBC Officer signed the agreement to this effect.[v]  However, the Museums Association disciplinary procedure found that the issue of ownership was far from settled and NBC did not indisputably own the statue.[vi] This puts into question the entire legality of the sale. 

 

We ask: 

• What was the deal whereby Lord Northampton agreed not to challenge the sale and agreed to relinquish his legal right to the statue?

 

• Why, when NBC told Christie’s that they owned Sekhemka, signed a sales agreement stating this and paid all the sales fees and premiums, was the Marquis of Northampton then paid over £6 million of public money?[vii]

• Was the £50,000+ which NBC spent on legal expenses in an apparently abortive attempt to show it owned Sekhemka a misuse of public money which in the end only benefited a private individual to the tune of over £6 million?

 

Our determination to get to the bottom of the sale of Sekhemka is re-enforced by the fact that we were advised that we had a case for a Judicial Review. And because our attempts to investigate these matters have been repeatedly frustrated due to what we regard as a spurious application of commercial confidentiality.  Commercial confidentiality cannot apply to the sale of an object owned by the public.  Instead it is an issue of the proper ACCOUNTABILITY OF PERSONS IN PUBLIC OFFICE.

 

The Action Group does appreciate the powerful message sent to museums by ACE and the Museums Association regarding sales from public collections – we hope it will work.  Sadly we think it might be too little too late and it certainly did not help in the Sekhemka case.

 

What is undoubtedly true is that the actions of Councillor Mackintosh and his administration have left the reputation of Northampton in shreds.

 

 

Gunilla Loe

Chair

Save Sekhemka Action Group

sekhemka@gmail.com

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  

[i] Currently Conservative PPC for the Constituency of Northampton South

[ii] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-28257714

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-28428637

  

[iii] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-32117427

  

[iv] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-29903549

  

[v] Sales Agreement released under the Freedom of Information Act

  

[vi] http://www.museumsassociation.org/news/01102014-ma-bars-northampton

  

[vii] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-28260067
 

UK Government issues Export Ban on Sekhemka Statue!

It has been announced today that Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has said that Sekhemka will not be allowed to leave the country.

The BBC are reporting that "Mr Vaizey made the decision following a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA), which is administered by Arts Council England."

The BBC also quote the RCEWA who are reported to have said that the statue was of "outstanding aesthetic importance" and was significant in the study of "the development of private statuary and funerary religion in Egypt and the history of human self-representation".

The Save Sekhemka Action Group are delighted that the Government has imposed a temporary export ban on the Statue of Sekhemka and we fervently hope that this will be upheld as a permanent ban on 29 July and Sekhemka, an internationally important work of Egyptian Art, will find a home in a public museum where it belongs.

The decision of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) to recommend the ban, not only vindicates our position as to the importance of Sekhemka as a work of art, but also provides much needed clarity as, until now today's announcement, we were not even able to establish that the buyer was from outside the UK.  This was because while the statue is of international importance, was owned by the people of Northampton and was sold by a publicly accountable body, their Council, the process was carried out behind the cloak of privacy and commercial confidentiality.

If the statue of Sekhemka is to be lost to the people of Northampton who enjoyed it for over one hundred years we would like to see Sekhemka retained in the UK.  The only problem is WHERE and HOW it could be retained and displayed since the sale itself was unethical and there is evidence it was also of doubtful legality.  As a consequence none of the UK's major museums wished to acquire it unless it was GIVEN outright - a public body cannot buy something owned by another public body, it is unethical and a misapplication of public money.

We also understand that the Art Fund was outraged when we told them about the proposed sale and declared they would not then help raise funds for a purchase.

Northampton Borough Council committed an act of great folly selling the statue of Sekhmeka.  Even greater was the folly when NBC agreed to buy off Lord Northampton to the tune of £7m thus halving their profit, rather than submitting to a transparent legal clarification of the statue's actual ownership. Now the consequences of this folly are even more apparent: Northampton museums have lost their Accreditation and with that all access to outside funding resulting in a loss of about a third of their income ( in our estimation) - This is not a good position from which to contemplate an extension to the Central Museum.

The Action Group will actively work to uphold the export ban through our many contacts and explore ways of how the statue can be kept in the UK.

Lottery Grant for Northampton Shoe Exhibition Rejected

So with the Sekhemka sale money in the bank the question now is how long will it last with funding options disappearing one by one.

The consequences of the unethical actions of Northampton Borough Council are now being made clear as this week we learn that a £250k application for money to support our shoe collection has been refused.

The damage is already done - we tried to tell NBC, they wouldn't listen.

 

According to the articles below, a council spokesman said: “While disappointed, we do understand that organisations such as the Heritage Lottery Fund have a duty to bring as many projects to fruition as possible and reach the widest possible audience, which means in this round Northampton has missed out. We will continue to expand our collection to provide excellent exhibitions and tell the story of Northampton as we welcome visitors to our town.”

 

Heritage Lottery Firm have though confirmed the bid was ineligible due to not having Arts Council Accreditation and dismissed the borough council’s suggestion it had not received any money because applicataions for this fund were oversubscribed.

 

Apparently NBC have replied saying: “We were told that our bid was too much for the size of project and understand also that the fund was oversubscribed. We were not told we were ineligible and as far as we are aware accreditation is not a condition of Heritage Lottery Funding.”

The Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund have rules and ethics requirements clearly laid out for good reason.

 

NBC have created this situation. Who loses out? The people of Northampton.

More here: http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/English-council-pays-price-for-controversial-sale-of-museum-object/36090

 

& here: http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/northampton-borough-council-denied-240-000-lottery-funding-because-of-sekhemka-sale-1-6395032

The Farewell Of The Save Sekhemka Action Group

On 10 July 2014 the Sekhemka Statue was sold to an unknown buyer at Christie’s for a gross sum of £16m.  The Action group still does not know who the buyer is or to which country the statue will go.

This sale took place despite the Action Group’s two year campaign to stop it, a campaign that did attract support from ordinary Northampton people as well as eminent academic and museum professionals.

 

During our campaign we pointed out time and again the consequences of a sale for Northampton Borough Council (NBC) and its museums.  These warnings were ignored by the NBC Cabinet and its Leader, Cllr David Mackintosh, and by the Chief Executive, David Kennedy, and the Director of Cultural and Customer Services, Julie Seddon.

 

The Museums have lost their Accreditation and membership of the Museums Association (MA) which means that they will no longer be able to receive outside funding from Arts Council England (ACE) or the Heritage Lottery Fund; this is demoralising for the museum staff and places the possibility of the extension to the Central Museum in jeopardy.

 

The Action Group has reached the end of the road, there are no further effective actions we can take.  However, as a result of our campaigning ACE and the MA are looking at strengthening the rules on the disposal of museum collections and the ethical responsibilities of Local Authorities who have museums in their care;  the academic world is debating their role in caring for collections.

 

The Action Group will keep its website and face book page open and UPDATED on ALL developments.  We are also supporting research by various Egyptian institutions regarding the legality of the 2nd Marquess of Northampton’s purchase and export of the statue in 1850; was it in accordance with the then Egyptian laws on antique artefacts since there is, as far as we know, no documentation on this in the UK? If the purchase and export of Sekhemka can be proved to be illegal the Egyptian authorities would like the statue repatriated – an outcome the Action Group would welcome unless a major British museum would act as a custodian on behalf of Egypt.

 

The members of the Action Group are sad that our two years of work did not have a more positive outcome; we are very grateful for all the support given by the public, the museum world, ACE and the MA and we fervently hope that our disappointment will not result in other action groups holding back in their campaigns – go for it and think positively.

 

Gunilla Loe

Chair of the Save Sekhemka Action Group

Northampton 30 October 2014

Northampton Museums Service barred from Museums Association membership

Northampton Museums Service has been barred from Museum Association membership for at least five years.

David Fleming, chairman of the MA's Ethics Committee, said: “We do appreciate the huge financial pressure that many local authority museums are under at the present time, but the MA's Code of Ethics provides for such a sale only as a last resort after other sources of funding have been thoroughly explored. At a time when public finances are pressured it is all the more important that museum authorities behave in an ethical fashion in order to safeguard the long-term public interest. Museums have a duty to hold their collections in trust for society. They should not treat their collections as assets to be monetised for short-term gain."

We wholeheartedly agree and have been saying this for many months. Sadly the worst has happened for Northampton's museums.

You can read the decision in full here:

http://www.museumsassociation.org/news/01102014-ma-bars-northampton

Northampton Museum loses Accreditation due to Sekhemka sale

The members of the Save Sekhemka Action Group are deeply saddened to learn of the Northampton Museums’ Loss of Accreditation.  During our 2 year campaign to halt the sale of the Egyptian funerary statue, Sekhemka, we have time and again warned that the unethical sale would result in loss of this status. 

 

We regret this because it will mean the certain decline of both the Central and Abington Museum since the loss of this status stops the Museum Service being eligible for outside grants from the Lottery, Arts Council England and other art/cultural grant giving bodies. 

 

This monetary loss is likely to be greater than the £8m gross NBC received for the statue. 

It also means that NBC is now free to sell whatever else does not fit in with Councillor David Mackintosh’s vision of the town’s museums and collections. 

 

Nothing in the collections will be safe unless it is shoe related: many of the 92 art items and artefacts donated by the Friends of Northampton Museums & Art Gallery will be sold, likewise many artworks bought with funds from the Art Fund, the V&A and other bodies provided the grants are re-paid.  Nothing is safe. 

 

The Action Group hopes that this removal of Accreditation will serve as a warning to other museums and Local Authorities: do NOT sell items from public collections – it is unethical and unprofessional and will ultimately mean that the great cultural assets the UK has in its various provincial museums will be a vague and distant memory in the near future.

 

This is indeed a BLACK and SHAMEFUL day for Northampton’s Culture and Heritage.

Today Arts Council England decide on Accreditation for Northampton Museum

So Sekhemka has disappeared, possibly forever, into an unaccountable private collection has come within days of a meeting of where Arts Council England will discuss removing Northampton Council's Accreditation as an ethically run Museum.

This news makes it all the more important that Arts Council England (ACE) and the Museums Association demonstrate the consequences of such unethical and damaging actions as selling publicly owned museum objects for short term profit, and punish Northampton Council by removing their Accredited status. 

This will hurt and humiliate our Town in the short term, but at least it will serve as a warning to others who would try to cash in on the museum collections we hold in trust for the future.  It might also prevent the Cllr Mackintosh and his Ruling Group from taking any more Government, Lottery and Charity grants under the false pretenses that they are professionally and ethically equipped to care for our culture and heritage.

Both keeping and losing accreditation are two terrible outcomes of this whole episode - the damage was already done when Sekhemka was sold.

A decision is expected from ACE within the next two weeks. The Museums Association will make a decision in September 2014.

Spinning Sekhemka

 

No amount of political spinning, or dazzling the press and public with the number of zero's at the end of the auction price, can hide the fact that last night's sale of Sekhemka in Christie's was an entirely avoidable, counter productive, day of shame for Northampton.  A shame compounded by the fact that the decision of one man, taken against all professional advice locally, nationally and internationally has led the world and the people of Egypt in particular, to see Britain as a place which sees Egypt's rich and historic culture as a chip to be bet on and cashed in, not a jewel of human creativity to be shared and cherished.

• We will continue to oppose the turning of Sekhemka into a commodity to be sold on the rich persons equivalent of E-bay, therefore we will oppose the export of the statue from the UK if that is what transpires, whoever the new owner of Sekhemka is.  Particularly if that owner is a private individual who will not put Sekhemka on free public display.  If Sekhemka is not to stay on open display in the UK his only legitimate destination is a public museum in Egypt. 

• We will also continue to expose the way this unethical, unnecessary and short sighted sale was undertaken, the many legal and financial questions which surround the sale and the conduct in public office of those whose mission it became to rob Northampton of both a cultural jewel and its cultural credibility.  We hope the local and national Media will join us in that quest for information and answers.

• We hope the media will also ask Cllr Mackintosh why he insisted on undermining confidence in the Conservative party's core policy in Arts and Culture, promoting philanthropy and donation.  As Alan Moore has pointed out, thanks to the sale of Sekhemka, no-one would dream of donating something valuable to a public museum if at some stage it can be taken away and flogged off to the highest bidder in a commercial fire sale

However, we are where we are and we must respond to the fact that Sekhemka was sold at Christie's for £15,762,500.

Cllr Mackintosh and Northampton Borough Council announced last night that "...it will retain around £8million (55 per cent of the proceeds), while the remainder will be remitted to Lord Northampton (around £6million)."

• What the Council statement did not say was that the auction costs [around 15%] and taxes will be deducted from that figure, and we might also add the over £40,000 of council Tax payers money spent on legal advice to facilitate the sale.  Thus the Council Tax payers of Northampton could see scarcely half of the headline figure spent in the Town, ring fenced or not.

• Equally, while the statement was open about the fact that the Marquis of Northampton will be receiving a windfall of over £5 million, the statement did not enlighten the Council Tax payers of Northampton why, when NBC allegedly "owned" Sekhemka, they will be adding to the fortune of the multimillionaire Marquis and paying for it by becoming pariahs in the museum and heritage world.  Like the Museums Association, we believe that the ownership of Sekhemka was never legally resolved and we will be consulting with colleagues to see if an investigation can be mounted into whether Councillor Mackintosh and Northampton Borough Council misled the public, the media and Christie's by saying they did own the statue.

In the statement Cllr Mackintosh has also attempted to spin his way out of the almost universal condemnation his actions have caused to be dumped on Northampton's name and in particular the likelihood that Northampton will lose its Museums Association accreditation, along with the credibility in museum matters which it has already lost.
His statement says

"Work has already begun on drawing up detailed plans for the [museum]  extension, which will underpin the growth of Northampton’s Cultural Quarter. The Borough Council is in the process of developing a funding package to take the extension forward, including putting together a bid for support from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The Council is also continuing to talk to the Arts Council about museum accreditation."

• We are sure it does.  Councillor Mackintosh was explicitly warned by Arts Council England and the Museums Association Ethics Committee that Museums Association accreditation was in severe danger were Sekhemka to be sold and with it access to many significant funding streams to supply the £7-8 million which will still be required to build the still hypothetical museum extension, even with Sekhemka's cultural equivalent of  blood money.

Cllr Mackintosh also said: "This money will allow us to realise our exciting plans for the future of the Museum Service. Every penny is ring-fenced for the Museum Service and we will now make our museum redevelopment plans a reality."

• We would point out that without the commitment to display the cream of all the collections and to hold a research archive curated by the  specialist curatorial staff and teachers who have been made redundant or not replaced, the Museum Service has no future.  Museums exist for their collections held in trust for the future and the expertise to display, describe and bring them to life for visitors and researchers. 

• We would also point out there were no "Museum development plans" when Councillor Mackintosh first wanted to sell Sekhemka [such plans were first mentioned when it became clear that the original plan to allegedly give the money to the Delapre Abbey Trust was a non starter as far as the Museums Association Ethics Committee was concerned.  There still are no such detailed, costed, plans.  Unless you count a cafe and shoe shop with a small gallery space.

Today's spinning is not just political.  It might just be the shade of Sekhemka spinning in his grave, although he might be heartened to know that thousands of people all over the world wanted to treat his beautiful artistic, archaeological legacy with the respect it deserves and demands under national and international ethical codes, and not have him hawked around and flogged off as the bauble to adorn a rich individual or institution.

The only way for Northampton to begin to climb out of the reputational mire into which it has been dropped by Councillor Mackintosh's sale of Sekhemka, is for the Museum Service to be handed back to the professionals who know how to run it ethically and for the good of the Town.  Otherwise we fear that this is the future of our Museums Service

Q:  What do you say to a Northampton Egyptologist?

A:  Two Cappuccino's and a Skinny Latte please

Media Contact  

For further comments, additional material including documents or images or to request interviews with members of the Save Our Sekhemka Action Group team please contact

Andy Brockman 

72 Nithdale Road

LONDON SE18 3PD

 

Telephone:               0208 316 6358                        

Mobile                      07958 543518                              

e-mail:  andyarchaeology@gmail.com

Sekhemka sells for £14m

Obviously we are heartbroken at what Cllr Mackintosh has caused to happen at Christie's tonight.

We hope you will understand this is a complex issue and we need to take some time to look at the details of the auction. 

We will be issuing a full statement and offering interviews tomorrow (Friday)

Just 24 Hours to Go - Several things you can do

Dear Friends,

There are just twenty four hours left to prevent the "unethical sale" of the statue of Sekhemka at Christie's and the only way we can do that is to help the Egyptian Government's legal moves to prevent the sale of Sekhemka with a show of people power.

The Cabinet of Northampton Borough Council meets tonight to discuss the conservation of the Battlefield of Northampton.  They are only doing this because local people worked together to prevent Council Leader David Mackintosh driving through a plan against all advice to bulid on the site.  Now we need to show Cllr Mackintoish that he has another losing battle on his hands over the "unethical" sale of Sekhemka.

We are going to send this petition to every member of Northampton Council as well as Christies, the Marquis of Northampton and the Media but we need as many names on it as possible.  If you haven't already done so please ask everyone you know or who you can contact to sign and share the link on the Social Media.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-sale-of-sekhemka-by-northampton-council

• Remember Councillor Mackintosh has not answered this key question-  if Northampton Borough Council really owns the statue, why are they giving the Marquis of Northampton 45% of the sale price-  that could be well over £2 million pounds?
   
• And why are the Council paying this huge amount of money to the Marquis when they have already spent over £40,000  to facilitate the sale and are paying all the legal and auction costs?

 

What else can you do?

1.  E-mail the Egyptian Embassy in London and thank them for intervening to protect the culture we share.  Ask them to take out an injunction to stop the sale becaue the ownership of the statue is not clear.

 

2.  E-mail the Culture Minister, Sajid Javid, to say that this sale threatens his own policy of using charitable giving and donations to help supply Arts funding.  The famoous Graphic Novellist Alan Moore, who is from Northampton, has said that the Sekhemka sale is a "gross betrayal of trust"  which will make anyone thinking to donate to a museum think twice.

 

3.  E-mail the Foreign Office to say that the decision of Cllr Mackintosh to sell Sekhemka has provoked the Egyptian Government into taking legal action and is bringing Britain into disrepute all over the world as the story spreads.

 

4.  E-mail Councillor Mackintosh directly to ask him to halt the Sale before even more damage is done to his and Northampton's reputation.

 

5.  E-mail Christie's to tell them that by undertaking what the Museums Association, the Art Fund and Arts Council England all say is an unethical sale which should not take place, they are tarnishing their image all over the world and are in breach of their own mission statement about corporate responsibility which says "Christie’s strives to manage its people and practices responsibly, in order to leave a positive, enduring impact on our communities -- particularly in helping to preserve and promote the world’s collective cultural heritage. "

The sale of Sekhemka is unethical, unecessary and counter productive and no-one in politics or the museums world has defended it except Councillor Mackintosh.  The only person who will gain from the sale is the Marquis of Northampton, one of the richest men in Britain who will get over £2 million at no cost to himself.  Please take this last chance to help defend the culture we share.

 

Thanks

Egyptian Government in Late Legal Challenge

From: Ahram.org.eg
Full story: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/105605.aspx

"Egyptian Antiquities Minister Mamdouh El-Damati has denounced the sale of the statue and described the museum's actions as incompatible with the values and role of museums worldwide, which he said should "spread culture" and not try to simply earn money."

"He called on the International Council of Museums (ICOM) to stop the sale on the grounds that it goes against the council's ethics."

Please sign and share our petition https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-sale-of-sekhemka-by-northampton-council

Then read the full story here:

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/105605.aspx