Moshe Dayan's antiquities to be sold at bargain prices in U.S. auction
Low prices due in part to the fact that the former army chief may not have excavated artifacts legally.
By Amiram BarkatA total of 165 archaeological artifacts collected by Moshe Dayan will be auctioned off Sunday morning at a small auction house in the U.S., but prices are being kept down in part because the former general and chief of staff may not have excavated them legally.
The items are part of 200 glass and pottery vessels from the collection of Irving Bernstein, a United Jewish Appeal leader who was close to Dayan before he died in 1981.
According to Bernstein's heirs, who initiated the auction, Dayan sold or gave Bernstein the items.
As far as was known, Dayan left his private collection to his second wife Rachel, who sold it in 1986 to the Israel Museum for $1 million. Rachel Dayan said at the time she kept 15 items. The sale was widely criticized because many of the items were obtained illegally. The late archaeologist Yigal Shiloh said that selling the items to the museum was tantamount to approving the robbery of antiquities.
The head of the Thomaston Place auction house in Maine, Kaja Veilleux, told Haaretz yesterday that interest in the sale had not been great. The price of several items, some bearing labels in Dayan's own handwriting, were being offered at relatively low starting prices of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Veilleux said prices were low because the items in question were not particularly rare or expensive. He said items would be sold even if the highest price offered was only $100.
An archaeologist, Professor Amos Kloner, told Haaretz that he did not think there was much public interest in items coming from the Dayan collection. "To the best of my knowledge, no artifact in the collection came from a legal excavation, which to my mind considerably reduces their value."
Dayan, whose interest in archaeology stemmed from the bond he felt to the Bible, as was reflected in the title of his book "Living with the Bible," began collecting antiquities in the 1950s. Over 30 years he collected some 1,000 artifacts and placed them in the yard of his home, one of the largest private antiquities collections in the country.
Among items that were said to have given international importance to the collection were anthropomorphic coffins from Dir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip and a stone mask from the Neolithic period that Dayan said he bought from an antiquities dealer in Hebron.
In 1968, Dayan was seriously injured during an excavation he was conducting at Yazur near Ramle. But he continued his efforts and did not shrink from taking advantage of his position to further his collection. During his terms as general, chief of staff and defense minister, he often used those under his command to collect artifacts.
The Israeli establishment turned a blind eye to his activities, and archaeologists feared confronting him publicly. To those who questioned him, Dayan would say "you should complain to the police."
Many archaeologists, and Dayan's first wife Ruth, said it would have been proper for the collection to have been given to the state for free. The museum said in response that the collection's purchase by private donors prevented its being sold to collectors abroad who would have paid double for it.
According to one of Bernstein's sons, Bernstein, the all-powerful executive vice-president of the UJA from 1971 to 1984, "was a trusted adviser to many of Israel's leaders and is still considered a legendary figure in national and international Jewish affairs." Bernstein died in 1997.
According to Bernstein's biography, which will be distributed to auction participants, "the artifacts have a well-established provenance, having passed through very few hands. They were unearthed and either sold to Mr. Bernstein through a State Authorized Antiquities Dealer in Jerusalem or gifted to him by his close friend, General Moshe Dayan. As a favor to Mr. Bernstein, many of the pieces have been identified, autographed and dated by Dayan himself."
People involved in the sale told Haaretz that Bernstein's sons kept the rarest items for themselves and sold the rest "to make room."
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Prominent politician and former IDF chief, Moshe Dayan. (Archives) |
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Jewish website? Since when is this site for Judeophiles only? Since when is Haaretz a Jewish newspaper? I am Jew and own a car. Does that make it a Jewish car? This is a public forum and your attempt at censorship is inappropriate, especially since you presume to know so much about Khybernator?s domestic situation. Your comment can easily be construed as a not all that subtle form of violence, a type of harassment that reflects the attitude of entitlement that led to Dayan?s corruption in the first place.
Dayan was a prominent thief of antiquity artifacts, but is by no means the only one in the IDF. Just look at what happened to the archeology sites in south Lebanon during the Israeli occupation in 1982-2000. This being said, the Israelis have not been the only looters, neither in Lebanon, nor in history. But what I find interesting in what distinguishes Israel, is how it has put archeology to the service of ideology in trying to resurrect, with more or less success and integrity, a past that comforts the history of the return of the Chosen People. I would be interested to know of others who did it, should you have references.
The law of every developed nation makes it a crime to knowingly buy stolen property! The USA is no exception! You're as much of a thief if you knowingly buy stolen property! This simple fact should be made clear to anyone who thinks about being part of this auction! And why hasn't the state of Israel stopped the transfer of these items from Israle to the US? Israeli law states that everything found underground is the property of the State.
Your post says it all. You are poisoned with hate for Jews so much so that you come on to a Jewish website to vent because your wife and kids are so sick of hearing it in the house. Please get some help.
That ugly zionist is burning in hell right now........
Israeli society is permeated with violence, abuse, and corruption from top to bottom. Moshe Dayan was a thief who took advantage of his elevated status and set an example that very many of our public officials are emulating to this very day. However, Dayan's looting, the corruption of the Sharon family, and the criminal behaviour of PM Olmert (even Katzav's abuses) are forms of violence that evolved from a sense of entitlement in our society and is partly rooted in the Zionist theft and pillaging of Arab property, and even worse, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that we have gotten away with so far. We are not the 'light unto the nations' that we claim to be. We are very dark indeed.
Dayan may or may not have been a great general, but as a human being he was a disaster. He was a thief and didn't care who knew it. He never bought a single piece of antiquity, he simply helped himself to anything he wanted from dozens of digs. He was a terrible womanizer, cheating on all of his wives, and a cold, distant father.
Nobody has the right to criticize Dayan. Given the same opportunity most of us would have stolen the artifacts. And if he used a helicoptor in the process so be it. Why was Rabin allowed to be Prime Minister with overseas dollar accounts in the Chasemanhattan Bank? Why was Sharon allowed to keep his farm on formerly Palestinian land ? Why was Ben Gurion allowed to become a Kibbutznik at an advanced age when work was out of the question? Why is Olmert allowed to keep his illegal homes? Why is Dayan the only picked on. He made have had only one eye but he could see better than most of his opponents.
THIS STORY MAKES ME DOUBT MY FEELINGS FOR ISRAEL. IT MAKES ME SICK.
Pure and simple!
Ironic turn of phrase in the article --- especially when speaking of Moshe Dayan, who was blind in one eye.