SAFE Beacon Award Lecture & Reception honoring Professor Colin Renfrew

SAFE Beacon Award Lecture & Reception honoring Professor Colin Renfrew:

Join SAFE for an evening of celebration honoring Professor Colin Renfrew, recipient of the 2009 SAFE Beacon Award, for his life-long service to archaeology and efforts to raise public awareness about the looting of the world's ancient heritage and the trade in illicit antiquities. The evening will commence with the Beacon Award Lecture, followed by the Beacon Award ceremony and a reception.

In his lecture entitled Combating the Illicit Antiquities Trade: the 1970 Rule as a Turning Point (or How the Metropolitan Museum lags behind the Getty) Professor Renfrew will contrast the responses of the Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the success of the Italian and Greek governments in securing from them the return of looted antiquities. He will commend the Getty's new policy and ask why the Metropolitan Museum has not followed suit. He will underline the significance of the recent decision of the Association of Art Museum Directors to follow the 1970 Rule and ask how long the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum can maintain the policies that led them to acquire the notorious "Euphronios Vase." He will also describe the ethical, intellectual and strategic framework for countering the traffic in illicit antiquities.