RES-2-32 OT:RR:BSTC:CCR H293025 AMW
Mr. Scott Pfeifer, LCB
Masterpiece International
1699 Wall Street, Suite 725
Mt. Prospect, IL 60056
RE: Restricted Merchandise; Archaeological and Ethnological Material from Republic of Mali; 19 U.S.C. § 2604; 19 U.S.C. § 2606; 19 U.S.C. § 2607; 19 C.F.R. § 12.104 et seq.
Dear Mr. Pfeifer:
This letter is in response to your December 4, 2017 ruling request and supporting documentation regarding the admissibility of 26 “loans” of medieval-era items excavated in the Republic of Mali. Our decision follows.
FACTS
The following facts are from your ruling request and the supporting information submitted on behalf of your client, Northwestern University, to this office on December 4, 2017, February 22, 2018, and March 16, 2018. The subject items are described as 26 “loans with the country of origin of Mali” that will be imported from the United Kingdom to the United States for display at a temporary museum exhibit at Northwestern University’s Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art. You have indicated through follow-up communication that objects will be returned to Mali no later than January 31, 2021.
According to your submission, these “loans” consist entirely of medieval-era items excavated at the Essouk-Tadmekka site in Northern Mali between January and March 2005. Your submission further notes that the subject items include several objects that were originally created outside of Mali (e.g., “fragment of Qingbai vessel” from China) but were deposited in the country during the medieval period through trans-Saharan trade routes. In support of this assertion, you submitted an article written by Sam Nixon, the Essouk-Tadmekka site’s lead archaeologist, which describes the excavation of the subject items at the site through photographic and/or narrative descriptions of each item.
The subject items were originally exported from Mali to the United Kingdom in 2005 and 2006 after the Malian government granted the following export authorizations to Mr. Nixon, a United-Kingdom-based researcher: (1) Malian Export Permit For Archaeological Materials No. 0126/ISH (Apr. 5, 2005), and (2) Malian Export Permit for Archaeological Materials No. 0012/ISH (Jan. 6, 2006). Both export permits are printed on the letterhead of the Malian Ministry of Education’s Institut Des Sciences Humaines (“ISH”) and contain the signature and seal of the ISH’s director.
According to your request, the 26 “loans” are comprised of the following items:
Fragment of Qingbai Vessel
Tadmekka
Eastern China
11-13th century
Porcelain
Gold coin blank mold
Tadmekka
Mali
11th century
Decorative fittings
Tadmekka
Mali
Copper alloy
Knife blade
Tadmekka
14th century
Iron
Key
Tadmekka
10th-11th century
Iron
Silk fragment
Tadmekka
China
14th century
Silk
Glazed oil lamp
Tadmekka
Possibly North Africa
12th-13th century
Two high-fired unglazed vessel fragments
Tadmekka
North Africa
13th-14th century
Ceramic with slip
Glazed lusterware vessel fragment
Tadmekka
North Africa or Spain
13th -14th century
Glazed vessel fragment
Tadmekka
North Africa or Middle East
10th-11th century
Two glazed cuerda seca ware fragments
Tadmekka
Glazed vessel fragment
Tadmekka
North African or Middle East
10th-11th century
Two glazed vessel fragments
Tadmekka
North Africa or Middle East
10th-11th century
Cowrie shell (cypraea moneta)
Tadmekka
Indian Ocean
12th-14th century
Selection of glass beads
Tadmekka
Nigeria, Egypt, Syria
Selection of glass vessel fragments
Tadmekka
North Africa, Egypt, Syria
Make up applicator
Tadmekka
Possibly North Africa
Copper alloy
Selection of terracotta pottery fragments
Tadmekka
Selection of terracotta pottery fragments
Tadmekka
Niger Bend area
12th-13th century
Selection of terracotta pottery fragments
Tadmekka
Mali
8th-14th century
Torso (fragment of a figural sculpture)
Tadmekka
Possibly Middle Niger
Four silver coins
Tadmekka
Possibly North Africa
12th-14th century
Silver
Gold coin blank mold
Tadmekka
Mali
11th century
Plant-based textile fragment
Tadmekka
10th-11th century
plant-based materials
Selection of worked and unworked semiprecious stones
Jasper/bauxite debitage, agate,
garnet, sandstone
Tadmekka
Coin mold fragment
Tadmekka
Mali
11th century
Coin mold fragment
Tadmekka
Mali
11th century
ISSUE
Whether the subject listed items are as archeological or ethnological and/or cultural materials prohibited from importation pursuant to 19 U.S.C. § 2606 and 19 C.F.R. §12.104a and § 12.104g.
LAW AND ANALYSIS
The Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act (“CPIA”), 19 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2613, sets forth the law of the United States as it became a party to the 1970 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (“UNESCO”) Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export, and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (“UNESCO Convention”). U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) regulations implementing the CPIA are set forth at 19 C.F.R. § 12.104 et seq.
19 U.S.C. § 2601 sets forth the definitions to be used in the statute. The relevant portion of this section provides, in pertinent part, that:
(2) The term “archaeological or ethnological material of the State Party” means--
(A) any object of archaeological interest;
(B) any object of ethnological interest; or
(C) any fragment or part of any object referred to in
subparagraph (A) or (B);
which was first discovered within, and is subject to export control by, the State Party... [emphasis added]
(9) The term “State Party” means any nation which has ratified, accepted, or acceded to the Convention.
Under 19 U.S.C. § 2602, the President is further authorized to enter into a bilateral agreement with another State Party that requests protection of cultural property under the CPIA. After such an agreement is concluded, 19 U.S.C. § 2604 authorizes the U.S. government to, “promulgate (and when appropriate shall revise) a list of the archaeological or ethnological material of the State Party covered by the agreement….”
19 U.S.C. § 2606, furthermore, requires importers of archaeological or ethnological material to provide a valid export permit from the country of origin:
Documentation of lawful importation
No designated archaeological or ethnological material that is exported (whether or not such an exportation is to the United States) from the State Party after the designation of such material under section 2604 of this title may be imported into the United States unless the State Party issues a certification or other documentation which certifies that such exportation was not in violation of the laws of the State Party.
Mali is a State Party to the UNESCO Convention. On September 19, 1997, the United States entered into a bilateral agreement with the Republic of Mali to establish import restrictions on archaeological material from the region of the Niger River Valley and the Bandiagara Escarpment (Cliff) of Mali (“the Agreement”). Effective September 19, 2007, the United States and Republic of Mali amended the agreement to include archaeological material from throughout Mali dating from the Paleolithic Era to approximately the mid-eighteenth century. The Agreement includes a non-exhaustive Designated List of Archaeological Material (“Designated List”) that describes the items to which the Agreement’s restrictions apply as required by 19 U.S.C. § 2604. The Designated List includes, but is not limited to, “objects of ceramic, leather, metal, stone, glass, textiles, and wood.”
As a preliminary matter, you have provided sufficient documentation demonstrating that the subject items were excavated in the Republic of Mali and are, therefore, archaeological and ethnological material of Mali. In particular, you provided a document stating that the subject objects “were excavated at the site of Essouk-Tadmekka in Northern Mali in January, February, and March 2005 . . . The excavated objects were all checked and listed by the [ISH] in Mali.” To support this assertion, you also provided a 2009 article by Mr. Nixon, the excavation’s director, which references the excavation of the subject items at the Essouk-Tadmekka site, including those originally brought to Mali via medieval trade routes.
The subject items, which were excavated in Mali and comprise items made of ceramic, metal, stone, glass, and textiles, qualify as designated archaeological material from Mali that are protected under the Agreement. As a result, the CPIA prohibits the importation of the subject items unless they are accompanied by a valid Malian export permit. You have provided copies, as well as English-language translations, of two export permits issued by the Republic of Mali’s Ministry of Education. You also provided a document cross-referencing the subject items with their corresponding entries on these Malian export permits. Taken together, these documents provide satisfactory evidence that the subject items were legally exported from Mali.
HOLDING
Based on the foregoing, we find that the 26 subject “loans” were legally exported from the Republic of Mali. Therefore, the subject items would not be prohibited from importation pursuant to 19 U.S.C. § 2606, 19 C.F.R. § 12.104a, and § 12.104g.
Sincerely,
Lisa L. Burley
Chief/Supervisory Attorney-Advisor
Cargo Security, Carriers and Restricted Merchandise Branch
Office of Trade, Regulations and Rulings