Ya Libnan

Canada returns seized Phoenician artifact to Lebanon

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Phoenician pendantCanada has returned an ancient glass pendant to its home in the Middle East, a decade after it was seized from an antiquities dealer in Montreal.

The tiny Phoenician pendant, dating from circa 600 BC, was seized by Canadian border officers in 2006, and the artifact has spent 10 years in limbo while art experts, politicians, diplomats and the courts sorted out its rightful home.

A Federal Court judge finally ruled in May this year that the pendant should be returned to the government of Lebanon, its country of origin, under a 1970 UNESCO convention that requires cultural property to be repatriated if it was exported illegally.

And so in a small, private ceremony in Ottawa in late July, the red-and-black glass image of a bearded man’s head was turned over to the chargé d’affaires of the Lebanese Embassy.

The return of the pendant, no bigger than a fingertip and estimated to be worth about $1,000 in the antiquities trade, marks the 20th time that Canada has acted under the 45-year-old UNESCO convention.

The glass pendant was taken from Allan Anawati, owner of Medusa Ancient Art Inc. in Montreal, by border officers on Nov. 27, 2006.

Seized under Customs Act

“An expert at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was consulted on its origin and authenticity,” says a briefing note obtained under the Access to Information Act from the Canadian Heritage Department.

“The expert indicated that it was authentic, dated to the sixth century BCE and originated from the larger Syrian Empire (which includes the modern state of Lebanon).”

On May 14, 2007, the Lebanese Ministry of Culture formally requested the pendant’s return, and the Canada Border Services Agency officially seized the object under the Customs Act, and eventually referred the matter to Canadian Heritage.

The department then went to Federal Court for a judge’s order. Anawati declined to challenge the application.

“In light of the low value of the pendant, legal fees would not justify further efforts toward this dispute,” Anawati said in an email to CBC News, declining further comment.

Judge Luc Martineau then issued the order in May this year, with no compensation or legal costs granted to Anawati. The handover was made July 28 at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, the first time Canada has returned a cultural object to Lebanon under the convention.

Sami Haddad, chargé d’affaires at the Lebanese Embassy, recently took the pendant to Beirut, where it will eventually go on display in the National Museum of Beirut after an official event in a few weeks marking the return.

“This is a very important antiquity,” Haddad said in an interview. “Glass wasn’t known around the world and the Phoenicians invented it.… We are very appreciative of all the efforts that were done on the Canadian side.”

In April this year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper returned a 12th-century sculpture of a parrot lady to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a ceremony in the Library of Parliament, a repatriation also under the UNESCO convention. The sculpture, believed to have been stolen, turned up in Canada in 2011.

CBC.CA

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4 responses to “Canada returns seized Phoenician artifact to Lebanon”

  1. Michaelinlondon1234 Avatar
    Michaelinlondon1234

    Good to have a story with a happy ending for a change.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Although, considering what ISIS types are doing with antiquities, it might have been a little premature.

  2. Phoenicians Avatar
    Phoenicians

    The Real True Phoenicians – Lebanese Sunnis And Orthodox But Not The Shites Or Christians: A Big Myth Not An Ethnicity But A Spiritual State (A Lie Repeated To Alienate The Real Canaanites, The Sunnis And Orthodox)

    There is a controversial myth in Lebanon concerning the ancestral origins of the Lebanese people. The myth says that the Lebanese are descended from the ‘Phoenicians’. It is controversial because today Lebanon is made up of people from very different origins, resulting in a complex mosaic of ethnicities, cultures and faith traditions.

    How can a nation comprising Canaanites, Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, Turks, Kurds, Copts… who are Christian and Muslim – Sunni, Catholic, Druze, Orthodox, Shiite – possibly claim to be descendants of one people: the Phoenicians, who are historically none other than the Canaanites?

    Nowadays, very few would claim this as historical fact. A prominent Lebanese Christian journalist: the late Ghassan Tueni, touches on this in his book A War on Behalf of Others about the war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990. Writing about Lebanon’s ‘identity crisis’ he observes, ironically, that the Christians and Shiites who most insist on this hypothesis have the least claim to Phoenician ancestry: their origins lie in Mid-Syria, Armenia, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Meanwhile those who most fiercely opposed it (due to their pro-Arab affiliations) are Sunnis and Orthodox whose ancestors have lived along the Lebanese coast for thousands of years, and are therefore more likely linked to Canaanite-Phoenician origins.

    The culture, achievements and merchant activities of the Canaanites is the subject of much historical research. What interests me is why they were called ‘Phoenicians’ and why these questions are still alive today.

    In fact they never died. The explanation is in the very name: the Phoenix is a mythological bird who never dies, and is constantly reborn from the ashes.

    What’s important, then, is not the link to Phoenicia through blood line, but the spiritual link to its very essence.

    The variety of historical monuments in Lebanon shows how many different civilizations have each in turn occupied this land. The very mention of the word ‘occupation’ conveys a meaning of destruction and reconstruction. With destruction comes loss, separation, pain, death… while with reconstruction comes a new life, beauty, freshness…

    This is exactly what happens to any people who choose live in Lebanon. Once you settle here, you have to be ready to accept losing everything, constantly, without any warning. But you also have a limitless bank account of hope for new beginnings.

    Whether or not you are descended from Canaanites, here, you ‘become’ a Phoenician. This is not an ethnicity but a spiritual state.

    1. nagy_michael2 Avatar
      nagy_michael2

      Thank you for the lesson in history. And lots of thanks to Canada for doing all its can to return the artifacts to Lebanon. Cheers!

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