Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 44mJust wondering, have you visited? The policies involving the movement of art have many facets, but I found Crystal Bridges to be a really stunning institution... 110
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Professa Murray @kalimurray.bsky.social · 10hAgain, OMB is using the apportionment mechanism to stop funding. Here it is the Smithsonian. I would note: they are not legally binding if exercised out of the scope of the President’s authority. 621988
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 13hThe student hasn't yet learned how to prompt effectively or put enough of their own humanity into an AI-assisted request. That's a teaching opportunity! Do we want more young journalists interested in covering art crime, or do we want to gatekeep an increasingly niche field into irrelevance? 000
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃 @professormusgrave.bsky.social · 23hThere’s a lot of talk about “shadow CVs”, in which you show your overt failures to normalize failure (airplane survival bias meme), but sometimes academics should also just admit that there are parts of our job that are pass/fail 9584
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 21hWhat came back: 335 objects of the Lombok treasure, seized when Dutch troops sacked the Cakranegara palace in 1894, and four 13th-century Singhasari statues, removed from a Javanese temple around 1804. Both handed over in Leiden on July 10, 2023. 000
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 21hWhy it still matters: it moved restitution from case-by-case goodwill toward a stated national policy, and it set up the Netherlands' 2023 returns of the Lombok treasure and Singhasari statues to Indonesia. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 21hThe report, "Colonial Collection and a Recognition of Injustice," chaired by Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You, also urged an independent committee to judge claims and a national centre for provenance research. The government adopted its approach in 2021. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 21hOn this day in the Art Law Almanac: Oct. 7, 2020. A Dutch advisory committee told the government the Netherlands must be willing to return, unconditionally, cultural objects looted from its former colonies if the source country asks. #ArtLawAlmanac 101
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hIf you or a student is affected: the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund is taking cases (www.ialdf.org/post/from-as...), and NIAC is collecting confidential accounts for possible legal action (secure.everyaction.com/HBgmRcFj_k2K...).ialdf.orgFrom Aspiring Lawyer to Legal Limbo 000
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hCredit where due: reported by UH student journalists Bowen Zaunbrecher and Celene Boureslan at The Daily Cougar, now on @chron.com via a new partnership. Thanks to Gwen Howerton @kissphoria.bsky.social for flagging it. Read it 👇 www.chron.com/news/article... #StudentJournalism #LegalEdchron.comWhy Texas may see fewer Iranian lawyers“The administration can’t just ban a whole race or ethnicity from taking the LSAT.” 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hThe legal profession is supposed to be open to anyone willing to do the work. Screening out would-be lawyers by ancestry cuts against everything we teach. And outside the legal trade press, this has gotten almost no attention. That should bother all of us. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hA test is not a weapons shipment. For years, a rule let Iranian nationals take university entrance and professional exams because education was understood to be outside what sanctions should touch. The government has now suspended that rule. #LSAT 110
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hAmericans can eventually clear it. Applicants who aren't US citizens may simply be shut out. And no other group has to prove where they live before they can sit for a standardized test. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hOne US-born Iranian-American on Reddit laid out what that looks like: account locked, told to email compliance, then asked to sign a residency attestation, send a passport photo, and wait days for access. Some applicants hit this during their test week. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hIranian citizenship passes automatically through the father, wherever the child is born. So American-born Iranian-Americans are getting their LSAC accounts flagged. They're being treated as a sanctions risk for wanting to sit for an entrance exam. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 23hAs someone who teaches law, I find this one hard to stomach. New Treasury sanctions mean the Law School Admission Council will no longer let Iranian citizens or residents take the LSAT. The barrier lands on people who want to study law. 🧵 #LawSky 131
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Piero Castellano 🇪🇺 @pierocastellano.com · 07/10/2026Great story by the usual suspect @aylajean.bsky.social - ellerine sağlık! www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/10/05/h...theartnewspaper.comBehind Turkey’s race to save Gallipoli’s vanishing shipwrecksA recently launched project called Deep Heritage aims to slow the disintegration of dozens of warships sunk off Turkey's coast during the devastating First World War campaign 012
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026NEW: In March the White House released an FY27 budget request that zeroed out the National Science Foundation's directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE). For months it was unclear what would happen. Now, with FY26 over, the damage to SBE is coming to light. My reporting:science.org‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences researchAgency body that funds sociology, linguistics, and archaeology studies in U.S. gave 90% fewer new grants this year 9648503
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Holly Brewer @earlymodjustice.bsky.social · 07/10/2026The demographic cliff is such a problematic term. It’s actually only - a 13-15% decline in college student populations over a fifteen year period (to 2041) — so less than 1% a year. It excuses a lot of administrative poor decisions. www.npr.org/2025/01/08/n...npr.orgA looming 'demographic cliff': Fewer college students and ultimately fewer graduatesThe long-predicted downturn in the number of 18-year-olds is almost here. And it isn't just a problem for higher education. It's a looming crisis for the economy. 35119
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️conifergirl.bsky.social @conifergirl.bsky.social · 07/10/2026An American senator travels to the Persian Gulf to see what his country is spending billions on and finds the gates locked. The Defense Department would not let Chris Murphy onto the heavily damaged base from which the Iran war is being 39732
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Fereidoun Biglari @fbiglari.bsky.social · 05/10/2026At ICAHM 2026, Sonia Shidrang reported the 40-day war damaged 149 historical sites across 20 provinces, including five UNESCO World Heritage properties. She urged international law, documentation, and a protection plan. www.tehrantimes.com/news/530771/...tehrantimes.comHeritage is identity: Iranian archaeologist exposes scale of war destruction to historic sitesTEHRAN – An Iranian archaeologist, Sonia Shidrang, highlighted in a global webinar hosted by the International Committee on Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM), a scientific committee under ICO... 0118
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Jim Wallace @jwallit.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Archaeology’s Silence On Israel’s Destruction of Palestinian Cultural Heritage avigail.substack.com/p/archaeolog...avigail.substack.comArchaeology’s Silence On Israel’s Destruction of Palestinian Cultural HeritageIf archaeology can’t speak up about the destruction of cultural heritage, what hope is there for the people? 001
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Hi folks: Today's the deadline for public comments on the proposed removal of federal protection for nat'l forests Hundreds of endangered species will be affected Here's info from the American Bird Conservancy, & the link for comments: abcbirds.org/news/roadles... www.fs.usda.gov/managing-lan...fs.usda.govRoadless Areas | US Forest ServiceWhat's NewOn Aug. 18, 2026, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brook L. Rollins announced that the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement that recommends removing the 2001 Roadle... 22343220
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 06/10/2026However good you think this is going to be, it’s better. Steve just has Alito dead to rights. 11727134
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Cambridge University Press - Archaeology @cambup-archaeology.cambridge.org · 06/10/2026📢 'Consequences of decentering the State in international law: a comparison in the field of cultural heritage': a new Call for Papers from the International Journal of Cultural Property! Send in your abstracts by 1 November Learn more: 🔗 cup.org/4y59zAG #archaeology #culturalproperty 021
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Why it still matters: it's a live test of whether cultural-heritage protections in armed conflict are enforced. HRW's report: hrw.org/news/2020/12/16/azerbaijan-attack-church-possible-war-crimehrw.orgAzerbaijan: Attack on Church Possible War CrimeAzerbaijani forces attacked a church in the city of Shushi on October 8, 2020 during the Nagorno-Karabakh hostilities, in what appears to be a deliberate targeting in violation of the laws of war. 000
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Weapon remnants pointed to munitions that can be aimed precisely; both strikes hit within about two meters on the same roof section. The second wounded three Russian journalists. The laws of war give religious buildings and historic monuments special protection. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Also on this day in the Art Law Almanac: Oct. 8, 2020 — two strikes hours apart hit Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shusha (Shushi) during the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Human Rights Watch later found it was likely targeted deliberately, a possible war crime. #ArtLawAlmanac 111
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026The law was enacted Dec. 24, 2020; the 26 works were back in Benin by Nov. 2021. What changed since: a May 2026 framework law lets France return objects taken illicitly in 1815–1972 by decree, with no special statute needed. Inalienability remains the rule. 000
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Among them: royal thrones of Kings Ghezo and Glèlè, carved palace doors, three bocio statues and six asẽn altars. Dodds gave 26 pieces to Paris's Trocadéro ethnography museum in 1893–95. They moved to the Quai Branly in 2003. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026The backstory: on Nov. 17, 1892, a French column under Col. Alfred-Amédée Dodds entered Abomey, capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey, after King Béhanzin fled. Troops occupied the palace and carried off royal objects as spoils of war. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 06/10/2026On this day in the Art Law Almanac: Oct. 6, 2020 — France's National Assembly unanimously backed a bill to return 26 Abomey royal treasures to Benin and El Hadj Omar Tall's sabre to Senegal, a carve-out from the inalienability of French public collections. #ArtLawAlmanac 110
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Palmyra shows both the reach and the gap: strong norms, very few defendants in the dock. Replicas of the arch have toured the world; the original is gone. Here's a replica in Geneva in 2019 #CulturalHeritage #ArtLaw 010
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 05/10/2026In 2016 the ICC convicted Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi for destroying Timbuktu's mausoleums, the first case centered on heritage destruction. In 2017, UN Security Council Resolution 2347 followed. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Legally, intentionally attacking historic monuments that aren't military objectives is a war crime under the Rome Statute, building on the 1954 Hague Convention's protections for cultural property. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 05/10/2026It followed ISIS's August 2015 destruction of the Temples of Baalshamin and Bel, and the murder of Palmyra's retired antiquities chief Khaled al-Asaad. The pattern was deliberate: erase the site, then broadcast the erasure. 100
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 05/10/2026On this day in the Art Law Almanac: Oct 5, 2015, Syria's antiquities director Maamun Abdulkarim told AFP that ISIS had detonated explosives around Palmyra's Monumental Arch, a Roman gateway ~1,800 years old. Only its columns were left standing. 120
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️The Wiener Holocaust Library @wienerlibrary.bsky.social · 05/10/2026On 5 October 1938 it was agreed by Nazi leaders that all German Jewish citizens should have their passports stamped with an identifying letter ‘J’. The marking of their passports alienated the Jewish community and constituted an important part of the campaign of persecution. 0107
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Roberta Mazza @robertamazza.bsky.social · 05/10/2026More papyri for sale through InLibris and the threats it faces facesandvoices.wordpress.com/2026/10/05/t...facesandvoices.wordpress.comThe Nile flood papyrus: Provenance, private collections and the tradeAfter the two Oxyrhynchus papyri at the centre of my last post, I wish to discuss another papyrus offered by Vienna based InLibris, the so–called Nile flood or inundation papyrus (P. Michael. 4 = T… 042
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Lucien Lazare, Jewish fighter in the French Resistance, has died at 101. After fighting the Nazis, he was rejected by his synagogue later in life for translating an article saying “Israel, today, is nothing but a formless mass of corruption, oppression and injustice.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/w...nytimes.comLucien Lazare, Jewish Resistance Fighter in Occupied France, Dies at 101 (Gift Article)He and a small troop of French Jews worked with the Allies to distribute supplies and fight the Nazis, ambushing a German train and liberating a city in the south. 131706504
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 04/10/2026A pretty key & funny theme in Rome worship is that the statues look very austere and white, ie “classical”. And arguably “white” in racial sense, tho I think that’s overstated. But most were originally painted. And they looked very different, more florid and certainly to modern eyes more eastern. 1334027
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Open Art Data @openartdata.bsky.social · 04/10/2026Bogdanos ‘pointed out recurring artifact seizures at the Met. “The question has to be asked, ‘Why are we the ones doing this?’” he told the Times’ 011
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Open Art Data @openartdata.bsky.social · 04/10/2026‘All of these objects were “smuggled into the United States and laundered by dealers and collectors through false provenance, exhibitions and museum donations,” according to the D.A. The office seized them from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’ 221
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Elizabeth Wrigley-Field @wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 03/10/2026My Minnesota friends have already seen this, but I keep thinking about it and want more people outside our state to, too. 1343151
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 03/10/2026The remains were found in a Greek border region in the 1960s, and the deal took years to negotiate. Mitsotakis framed the return as part of the same push to recover the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. Meanwhile North Macedonia claims Samuel as its own ruler. 000
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Dead since 1014, Bulgaria's Czar Samuel got a fighter-jet escort home, swapped for 48 objects Greece lost in WWI. Heritage diplomacy never forgets. #Repatriation #CulturalHeritage www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10...aljazeera.comRemains of Bulgaria’s Czar Samuel return ‘home’ after 1,000 yearsThe emperor is a symbol of Bulgarian national identity whose repatriation stoked tensions with Greece. 110
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Kristof Smeyers @kristofsmeyers.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Tenure track position for a social/cultural anthropologist here in Leuven, apply before 1 December: www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... 11318
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Tanya Pia Starrett @tanyapiastarrett.bsky.social · 03/10/2026You know what to do @britishmuseum.bsky.social Greece returns priceless relics – and suggests UK should follow suit with Parthenon marbles | Bulgaria | The Guardian share.google/yjU53wh7wwwu...share.googleGreece returns priceless relics – and suggests UK should follow suit with Parthenon marblesGreek PM hopes handover of Tsar Samuel to Bulgaria will persuade Britain that time has come for ‘truth, reason, justice and morality’ 034
Reposted by Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️Damien Huffer @damienhuffer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026www.abc.net.au/news/science... Thanks for the good reporting on this important topic. Domestic markets represent exploitable loopholes. @peterdekruijff.bsky.social @counteringcrime.bsky.socialabc.net.auIvory still legal to sell in Australia despite 2019 promise to ban itA new study has found hardly any of the $1.2 million worth of elephant ivory sold or advertised in a six-month period in Australia came with paperwork proving its origin. 011
Derek Fincham 🌵🗿🏛️🖼️🏴☠️ @dfincham.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Bonus: the Brooklyn Museum's fun movie connection. In The Hot Rock (1972), Robert Redford plays a thief hired to steal a diamond from the museum, one taken from an African nation in colonial times. A repatriation plot, two years after the 1970 UNESCO Convention. end/x 031