Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me: Hobby Lobby’s Continued Buying of Smuggled Antiquities

At 3:30 AM on July 30, 2017, Israeli police raided the homes of five antiquities dealers in Jerusalem, arresting them and seizing a number of antiquities, including gold coins, ancient weapons, and even a fresco from Pompeii.[1] Halfway around the world in the United States, Hobby Lobby was dealing with its own legal issues regarding antiquities purchased from those dealers.[2] Hobby Lobby, a family-owned arts and crafts chain[3] with an annual revenue of about $3.7 billion,[4] is perhaps best known for its Supreme Court case involving a for-profit corporation’s right to exercise religion by denying contraceptive health insurance coverage to its employees.[5] In 2009, Hobby Lobby began collecting objects for its new project: the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.[6]

In December 2010, Hobby Lobby purchased 5,548 Mesopotamian artefacts for sale: cuneiform tablets, cuneiform bricks, clay bullae, clay envelope seals, and stone cylinder seals.[7] While a consultant appraised the objects at $11,820,000, Hobby Lobby purchased the artefacts for $1,600,000,[8] at roughly 13% of the objects’ appraised value. Prior to purchase, Hobby Lobby was provided with a false provenance statement for the objects, but no one at the company followed up to confirm the statement.[9] Moreover, Hobby Lobby had hired an art expert to advise on purchasing Iraqi antiquities, who warned of the immense risk that any Iraqi antiquities bought were likely looted.[10] Most of the items were shipped in multiple packages from Israel to three different Hobby Lobby addresses in the United States, with shipping labels which listed the packages as ceramic tiles manufactured in Turkey worth between $250 and $300.[11] Customs officials view buying valuable objects for only a fraction of their worth, lying about object provenance and value on U.S. Customs forms, and shipping objects to multiple shipping addresses all as strong indicators that imported items have been smuggled.[12] U.S. Customs seized five of the eight packages before they could reach Hobby Lobby.[13]

The United States Department of Justice filed a complaint in rem[14] in 2017 for the forfeiture of the objects that had arrived in the United States. The Department of Justice’s complaint relies on two reasons the items must be forfeited. The first is a customs violation.[15] The second is under violation of Iraq’s patrimony laws. The U.S. National Stolen Property Act bans importing cultural property into the United States if doing so violates a foreign country’s patrimony laws.[16] If Customs finds an object that is cultural property protected by its country of origin’s cultural patrimony law, and the importer cannot prove that the object has been owned prior to the applicable patrimony law, the object can be detained and seized.[17] In protection of its cultural heritage, Iraq has instituted patrimony laws, stating that all antiquities found in Iraq are the property of Iraq.[18] People generally cannot own or export Iraqi antiquities, except in limited exceptions and with government approval.[19] Moreover, United States law prohibits the possession or transfer of ownership of illegally removed Iraqi cultural property, including property where there is suspicion that the property was illegally removed from Iraq after 1990.[20] Based on these laws, Hobby Lobby’s purchase of the artefacts was likely a violation of United States and Iraqi cultural protection laws.

Hobby Lobby consented to the forfeiture of the objects and to pay $3 million in order to settle the civil suit.[21] The objects were returned to Iraq the following year.[22] Hobby Lobby has denied any intentional wrongdoing, but promised to be more careful in the future when acquiring objects for the museum.[23] In a press release, Hobby Lobby stated, “[t]he Company was new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process.”[24]

Even so, three years later, on May 18, 2020, the Department of Justice filed another complaint in rem for the forfeiture of a cuneiform tablet from modern-day Iraq.[25] The Gilgamesh Dream Tablet, a Babylonian tablet from 1600 B.C.E. reciting a portion of the Epic of Gilgamesh, was sold to Hobby Lobby in July 2014 for $1,674,000.[26] While Hobby Lobby requested the tablet’s country of origin before buying the tablet and received a reply that the tablet had been in the United States since at least 1981, no one looked into the provenance, or requested documentation to confirm the object’s provenance until three years later.[27] Only in 2017 was proper research conducted, which led to the discovery that the provenance had been faked, and that the tablet only arrived in the United States in 2003.[28] Homeland Security agents seized the tablet in September 2019.[29]

This May, the Department of Justice filed their second complaint in rem in connection with Hobby Lobby’s antiquities, this time for the forfeiture of the Gilgamesh Dream Tablet.[30] Again, the Department of Justice relied on the National Stolen Property Act for the forfeiture of the tablet.[31] Because the tablet’s provenance was fabricated, the importer cannot prove that the object was legally acquired, and thus, the object could be detained and seized.

While the purchase of the tablet came several years after Customs had seized thousands of Hobby Lobby’s Iraqi antiquities, Hobby Lobby was not especially concerned with confirming provenance and avoiding buying looted antiquities in either case. The effect is that Hobby Lobby has bought thousands of stolen and likely looted objects.

Several weeks ago, the Museum of the Bible announced the return of 5,000 artefacts to Egypt, and 8,106 artefacts to Iraq.[32] In light of yet another round of illegal items, it is clear that Hobby Lobby has not been meeting the standard of care that is necessary in order to purchase legally acquired antiquities.

In addition to the great damage and destruction that comes with looting, looting has an immense impact on cultural heritage as well as archaeological study.[33] Further, while some may turn to looting as a means to fight poverty,[34] due to its illegal nature and the need for contacts, looting of cultural artifacts often has direct or indirect links to organized crime or terrorism.[35] With the subsequent rise of looting in Iraq in connection with ISIS,[36] it is now more important than ever that buyers take every precaution against buying stolen antiquities, especially in Iraq.

Museums are institutions of learning, and must set an example for their patrons. The Museum of the Bible’s purchase of suspect artefacts that later turn out to be illegal is unacceptable, but the continued purchasing of such items, even after government seizure, is unconscionable. It seems highly unlikely that Hobby Lobby can purchase the types of antiquities they are attempting to purchase without a large degree or risk of looting and smuggling.[37] Thus, Hobby Lobby must stop purchasing antiquities with any risk of illegal acquisitions, in order to finally stop the long line of illegal goods from flowing to the Museum of the Bible.

Madison Pracht is a staff member of Fordham International Law Journal Volume XLIV.

This is a student blog post and in no way represents the views of the Fordham International Law Journal.

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[1] See Daniel Estrin, Israeli Authorities Arrest Antiquities Dealers in Connection with Hobby Lobby Scandal, NPR (July 31, 2017), https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/07/31/540579261/israeli-authorities-arrest-antiquities-dealers-in-connection-with-hobby-lobby-sc; Oren Liebermann, Ancient Artifacts Seized in Jerusalem in Hobby Lobby Antiquities Case, CNN (Aug. 2, 2017), https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/01/middleeast/antiquities-arrests-jerusalem/index.html.

[2] See id.

[3] See Our Story, Hobby Lobby, https://www.hobbylobby.com/about-us/our-story (last visited Nov. 10, 2020).

[4] See Joel Baden & Candida Moss, Can Hobby Lobby Buy the Bible?, The Atlantic (Jan./Feb. 2016), https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/can-hobby-lobby-buy-the-bible/419088/.

[5] See Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014).

[6] Candida R. Moss & Joel S. Baden, Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby 25 (2017). Note that while the museum is in Washington, D.C., the charitable organization, Museum of the Bible, Inc., is based at Hobby Lobby, Inc., in Oklahoma City. The Green family (which owns Hobby Lobby) buys objects, and then donate them to the charitable organization at a tax right-off. See id. As such, the Greens try to buy objects at relatively cheap prices that can be valued higher for tax purposes. See id. at 26.

[7] See Verified Complaint in Rem at 8, 11, United States v. Approximately 450 Ancient Cuneiform Tablets, No. 1:17cv3980 (E.D.N.Y. July 5, 2017) [hereinafter Cuneiform Complaint].

[8] See id. at 10-11.

[9] See id. at 10.

[10] A section of the expert’s memorandum reads:

I would regard the acquisition of any artifact likely from Iraq (which could be described as Mesopotamian, Assyrian, Akkadian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Parthian, Sassanian and possibly other historic or cultural terms) as carrying considerable risk. An estimated 200-500,000 objects have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq since the early 1990s; particularly popular on the market and likely to have been looted are cylinder seals, cuneiform tablets. Id. at 10-11.

See also, Hobby Lobby’s Legal Expert Speaks: “I Can’t Rule Out…They Used My Advice To Evade the Law.”, Chasing Aphrodite (July 10, 2017), https://chasingaphrodite.com/2017/07/10/hobby-lobbys-legal-expert-speaks-i-cant-rule-out-they-used-my-advice-to-evade-the-law/.

[11] See Cuneiform Complaint supra note 7 at 13-18.

[12] Id. at 6; Chasing Aphrodite, supra note 10,; see, e.g., United States v. An Antique Platter of Gold, 184 F.3d 131 (2d Cir. 1999).

[13] See Cuneiform Complaint supra note 7 at 15.

[14] See id.

[15] 18 U.S.C. § 542 makes it a crime to make a materially false statement while importing merchandise into the United States. 18 U.S.C. § 545 forbids importing merchandise into the United States “contrary to law.” 19 U.S.C. § 1595a(c)(1)(A) provides that “[m]erchandise which is introduced or attempted to be introduced into the United States contrary to law . . . shall be seized and forfeited if it . . . is stolen, smuggled, or clandestinely imported or introduced.”

[16] 18 U.S.C. § 2314, et seq.

[17] Id.

[18] Cuneiform Complaint supra note 7 at 7 (citing Antiquities Law No. 59).

[19] Id. For more information, see Lindsay E. Willis, Looting in Ancient Mesopotamia: A Legislation Scheme for the Protection of Iraq’s Cultural Heritage, 34 GA. J. Int’l & Comp. L. 221, 237- (2005).

[20] 31 C.F.R. § 576.208; Cuneiform Complaint at supra note 7 at 7.

[21]See Hobby Lobby Settles $3 Million Civil Suit for Falsely Labeling Cuneiform Tablets, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (July 5, 2017), https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/hobby-lobby-settles-3-million-civil-suit-falsely-labeling-cuneiform-tablets.

[22] See ICE Returns Thousands of Ancient Artifacts Seized from Hobby Lobby to Iraq, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Aug. 2, 2018), https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-returns-thousands-ancient-artifacts-seized-hobby-lobby-iraq#wcm-survey-target-id.

[23] See Artifact Import Settlement, Hobby Lobby (July 5, 2017), https://newsroom.hobbylobby.com/articles/artifact-import-settlement/.

[24] Id.

[25] Verified Complaint in Rem, United States v. One Cuneiform Tablet Known As The “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet,” No. 1:20cv2222 (E.D.N.Y. May 18, 2020).

[26] See id. at 2, 8, 9.

[27] See id. at 9-11.

[28] See id. at 5-6, 14-18.

[29] See id. at 2.

[30] See id.

[31] See id. at 3-5.

[32] See Steve Green, Update on Iraqi and Egyptian Items, Hobby Lobby (Jan. 27, 2021), https://www.museumofthebible.org/newsroom/update-on-iraqi-and-egyptian-items.

[33] See Alex W. Barker, Looting, the Antiquities Trade, and Competing Valuations of the Past, 47 Ann. Rev. Anthropology 455 (2018); Zainab Bahrani, Desecrating History, The Guardian (Apr. 9, 2008), https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/09/plunderingiraq.

[34] See Amy E. Miller, The Looting of Iraqi Art: Occupiers and Collectors Turn Away Leisurely from the Disaster, 37 Case W. Res. J. Int’l L. 49, 64 (2005).

[35] See Cara Libman, Preserving Culture During War: How to Prevent Terrorist Groups from Profiting from the Sale of Antiquities, 42 Suffolk Transnational L. Rev. 365, 393-94 (2019); 190; Morag M. Kersel, From the Ground to the Buyer: Market Analysis of the Illegal Trade in Antiquities, in Archaeology, Cultural Heritage and the Antiquities Trade 188, 190 (Neil Brodie, Morag M. Kersel, Christina Luke, & Kathryn Walker Tubb eds. 2006).

[36] See Libman, supra note 44; Hannah D. Willet, Note, Ill-Gotten Gains: A Response to the Islamic State’s Profits from the Illicit Antiquities Market, 58 Ariz. L. Rev. 831 (2016).

[37] See Cuneiform Complaint supra note 7 at 10-11.