Looting and the Challenges for Heritage Preservation

Conference & Podcasts

Looting and the illicit trafficking of cultural assets pose a serious threat to cultural and natural heritage worldwide. Illegal excavations, theft, and the smuggling of cultural property not only remove artefacts from their original contexts but also destroy archaeological sites and the historical evidence they contain. These practices undermine our understanding of the past and threaten the collective memory and cultural identity of affected communities.

In times of violent conflict and state collapse, the looting of heritage can extend beyond archaeological artefacts and works of art to include agricultural plant genetic resources, such as seeds, germplasm, and herbarium collections. These resources are essential to biodiversity, agricultural resilience, and biocultural heritage. The loss or illicit appropriation of such resources can therefore endanger tangible and intangible cultural heritage as well as natural heritage.

Despite international frameworks such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11.4, which calls for greater efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage, significant challenges remain. High market values, gaps in legislation, difficulties in enforcement, and limited international cooperation continue to facilitate illicit trafficking.

An interdisciplinary Arab-German approach
The Working Group Common Heritage and Common Challenges addresses these issues through an interdisciplinary and international approach. Its conference, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Looting and the Challenges for Heritage Preservation, held in Alexandria, Egypt, brings together expertise from Arab and German academic and professional contexts to examine the causes, consequences, and possible responses to the looting and illicit trafficking of cultural and natural heritage.

The project explores strategies to strengthen legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms, develop community-based protection initiatives that offer sustainable economic alternatives to looting, and advance technological solutions for artefact tracking, authentication, and digital preservation. It also seeks to foster sustainable cooperation between German and Arab institutions, strengthening the exchange of knowledge and expertise across disciplines and national borders.

The project's interdisciplinary framework brings together perspectives from:

• Archaeology and heritage studies, to examine the historical and cultural significance of looted objects and their original contexts
• Law and political science, to explore legal frameworks, governance, enforcement, and international cooperation
• Technology and engineering, to develop tools for digital preservation, tracking, and heritage protection.
• Chemistry and biology, to advance methods of authentication, conservation, and the preservation of biological resources
• Sociology and economics, to investigate the social and economic drivers of looting and identify sustainable alternatives
• Media and communication studies, to raise public awareness and develop effective outreach strategies.
• Agricultural sciences, to address the protection of plant genetic resources and their importance for biocultural heritage

By connecting these fields, the project aims to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that shape heritage loss and to identify approaches that respond to its legal, political, social, technological, and environmental dimensions.

Exploring looting: A podcast series
Beyond the conference, the working group members produce a podcast series featuring experts and selected conference participants. The episodes explore different dimensions of looting and heritage preservation, making interdisciplinary research accessible to a broader audience beyond academia.

• Episode 1| Preservation of the Past: The Role of Museums in Promoting Social Awareness
  Guest Speaker: Dr. Frank Förster, Curator of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn, Germany
  Moderation: Dr. Ghada Mohamed, Cairo University, Egypt

Further episodes of the series will be published in due course.