Olympia Resolution 2015

Wolf-Dieter Heilmeyer

Olympia Sept. 2015

Olympia Resolution 2015 on International museum collaboration and protection of cultural heritage

Participants of the International Symposium „The need of a Constructive dialogue between people and cultures“, Ancient Olympia, 1 – 7 September 2015

expressing their consternation over the plunder of ancient sites and museums as well as the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage in connection with armed conflicts;
notifying the ongoing illegal excavations, robbing archaeological objects from their contexts and surrendering them illegally to a „transnational“ market;
knowing the legal difficulties in direct collaboration of partner museums to avoid such illicit market and handle the exchange of long-term loans and counter-loans, their restoration, exhibition, scientific investigation and publication;

agree to ask the responsible curators of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the International Council on Monument and Sites (ICOMOS)

in accordance with their conventions on museums ethics and against illicit cultural properties;
in accordance with the UNESCO Convention of 1970/72 and the Unidroit Convention of 1995,

to accept the responsibility of demanding from national politics and administrations worldwide to develop direct museum collaborations on loan-exchanges;
to enhance national laws, especially in the source States, limiting the loan-periods in a restrictive way: four or five years under international controlled museum-conditions should count as a norm;
to draft model contracts about long-term loans for studies in teamwork to be nominated in the contract, for possible restorations according to the regulations of the lending museum, for exhibitions in adequate climatic situations and security;
to encourage museums to build up networks of institutions interested in loan-exchange under these conditions;
to call on the museum-administrations to formulate and then to make publicaly known their Acquisition policy in relation to antiquities, with equal force for the acceptance of objects on loan or conservation: this policy includes the strong observance not to handle objects without a „predigree“ about its provenance;
to ask all museums and institutions interested in cultural exchanges to inform constantly the public about destruction of cultural heritage caused by illicit excavation or terrorism.

Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do