The art of stealing

Updated

On an island at the bottom of the world, there's been an art heist.

The coastline on Tasmania's north-west is so windy that the white-capped waves push massive clumps of seaweed onto the rocky beach.

Victor Ralph — a pakana, or Tasmanian Aboriginal, ranger — is on his hands and knees as he dusts sand off a large piece of sandstone, uncovering the faint remains of a circle that has been carved into the rock by his ancestors.

"These petroglyphs have probably been around for longer than 40,000 years," he says.

The ancient rock carvings are priceless to Tasmania's Aboriginal community, but someone has stolen one.

It is an unsolved crime that Australian Federal Police (AFP) have investigated all the way to the USA.

A meticulously executed crime

The theft — involving the black-market sale of the ancient carving — began 21 years ago.

The AFP says the petroglyph was probably stolen from Sundown Point, in Tasmania's north-west, sometime between October 11 and 15 in 1998.

In a meticulously executed act, the thief cut away an entire section of rock, choosing exactly which one of the many petroglyphs they would steal.

Palawa woman Sharnie Read wants the person who bought the rock on the black market to return the engraving.

"We know that the stealing of the art coincided with what's called a 'swap meet' of heritage artefacts that was run in Sydney at the same time, so it just seems like a coincidence that we had some of our ancient art stolen and removed," she says.

The stolen petroglyph isn't the only rock art Ms Read is trying to get returned.

Together with her colleague Andry Sculthorpe from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Ms Read has started meeting with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) to organise the return of a large petroglyph that was taken from nearby preminghana by archaeologists in 1962.

Preminghana is 38 kilometres north of Sundown Point and contains 500 hectares of land that was officially handed back to the Aboriginal community by the state government in 1995.

The process of getting that rock back is mired in politics.

But the case of the person who stole the petroglyph from Sundown Point in 1998 is simple — it's a crime.

'We lost the trail'

Details of the stolen petroglyph are now held on Interpol's stolen works of art database.

The AFP had collected crime scene photos, soil and rock samples from the rugged coastline where it was stolen.

A worker on the ferry that links the island state of Tasmania to mainland Australia reportedly saw a slab of rock on the backseat of someone's car.

They had no idea that it was a priceless artefact until it was gone.

The police searched Australia for the petroglyph, investigating rock, mineral and gem dealers.

The AFP suspected the engraving had been taken overseas, so they started searching the United States.

According to Tony Brown — the former senior curator of Indigenous cultures at TMAG — it is believed the petroglyph was stolen for a rock art sale.

"After America we lost the trail," he says.

The Interpol listing is still active, but the AFP says its attempts to find the stolen petroglyph in the US have been "unsuccessful".

'That's where we came from'

The person who has the stolen petroglyph may not understand what they are holding.

Even for the palawa people of Tasmania, the circles are mysterious.

Victor Ralph, the pakana ranger, thinks the circles may represent waterholes.

Other carvings depict animals.

Mr Brown, who is also a pakana man, says the symbols represent many things.

Some look like the Moon and Sun, and that is linked to spiritual beliefs.

He points to the sky and explains: "Aboriginal people, according to creation stories, that's where we came from — up there as opposed to walking across the land bridge [from mainland Australia]."

The rock may also be older than the illegal collector realises.

The State Government says the petroglyphs were carved more than 3,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have carbon dated campfire ash near the petroglyphs to come up with the date.

But Mr Brown says you can not date the rocks that the petroglyphs are carved on.

Tasmania's Aboriginal community believes it is some of the oldest rock art in the world.

Mr Brown says some petroglyphs were found in the water, meaning they were carved before sea levels rose after the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago.

"We think they're older than time," Mr Ralph says.

The threat of a curse

Just how much money an illegal collector paid for the ancient rock on the black market is unclear.

Antonio Gonzalez, an Indigenous rock art expert from Deakin University, explains there is no fixed price in the illegal trade of antiquities.

But, he estimates that "if there's a collector who's really interested, he or she might pay somewhere between $2,000 and $40,000 or even more".

Dr Gonzalez believes the rock is being held somewhere in the northern hemisphere.

He says collectors have the cash and access to the black market in countries such as France, Germany, the UK and a new market — Russia.

He says the rock is probably in someone's loungeroom or a private museum.

It may be in the culprit's best interest to hand the petroglyph back to the Aboriginal community in Tasmania.

Not just because of the police investigation, but because the rocks just might be carrying a curse.

Mr Brown says some people think preminghana is a sacred women's site because several men have had car crashes there.

"I know it happens on places on the mainland in places like Uluru, people get sick and have bad vibes if they take and remove stone artefacts … and it has happened in other parts of Tasmania," he says.

When asked if there may be a curse associated with the stolen rock art from Sundown Point, Sharnie Read says she believes it is possible.

"Spiritually, as an Aboriginal person I would suggest there would be," she says.

"And I suppose, I guess, deep inside there's a part of me that says 'I'd like that to happen to someone who stole our ancestors and our connection'."

'Preserved for who?'

Whether the rocks are cursed or not, there's little Tasmania's Aboriginal community can do about the rock still held by TMAG.

It was taken more than a decade before state laws were enacted in 1975 protecting Aboriginal heritage.

Today any organisation that removed rock art would be fined up to $1.63 million.

Any individual who stole a petroglyph would face a fine of up to $815,000.

But the Tasmanian law designed to protect Aboriginal heritage does not give palawa people the power to force the museum to give their ancient heritage back. They must ask.

TMAG is a prestigious museum.

Its website says as the second-oldest museum in Australia, established in 1843, it "safeguards the physical evidence of Tasmania's natural and cultural heritage, and the cultural identity of Tasmanians".

But Mr Brown, who worked there for 18 years, questions why the petroglyph hasn't yet been returned to his people.

"People might say, 'OK, this petroglyph because it was taken has been preserved'," he says.

"Preserved for who?

"It hasn't been preserved for us, the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, it's been preserved for the non-Aboriginal community — the white community, the white archaeologists."

Dr Gonzalez calls the situation "disgusting".

"The reasons behind this come historically from this point of view that Aboriginal people don't really know much about their own culture, so they need to be told how they can appreciate their own culture," he says.

"Of course this is all wrong."

The museum's new director, Janet Carding, recently met Ms Read and her colleague Andry Sculthorpe to discuss a handback.

It is the latest meeting in the museum's discussions with the Aboriginal community that have been going on since 2010.

The negotiations come at a time when the Federal Government is funding a program designed to get international institutions, such as the British Museum, to hand back cultural objects that have been taken from Australia's Indigenous communities.

The community will decide if the petroglyph is returned to where it was taken from at preminghana, or if it is stored by the palawa people elsewhere in Tasmania.

Ms Carding declined a request to do an interview with the ABC.

In a statement, the museum said it recognised "the Tasmanian Aboriginal community has a claim on the preminghana material" and that it was "committed to resolving the future of these petroglyphs".

The museum described the discussions with the Aboriginal community as being in the preliminary stages.

'It's time to set your spirit free'

Tasmania's Aboriginal people have long been separated from their land, each other and their heritage, but they see a heathy future as one where they can connect with their ancient culture on country.

Sharnie Read is running the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre's rrala milaythina-ti — strong in country project — wilderness trips, on which the community connects with the land, their heritage and each other.

After one wilderness trip, a member of the Aboriginal community wrote this poem:

It's time, come walk with me,

To the open plains,

To the mountain terrains,

Touch the river running free,

It's time, come walk with me,

Down to the forest,

Breathe the air under the trees,

Smell the morning dew, eucalypt stained,

Listen to the birds sing and watch the eagle soar high, high above me,

It's time to open your senses,

It's time to set your spirit free.

Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, art-history, crime, history, community-and-society, indigenous-culture, archaeology, human-interest, tas, united-states, australia, woolnorth-7330, marrawah-7330, hobart-7000

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