The Two Lives of an Antiquity: Understanding Provenance and Provenience

In the study of antiquities, two words; provenance and provenience, are of fundamental importance. Though they sound alike and are often used interchangeably by the public, for an archaeologist, museum curator, or serious collector, they represent two distinct, and equally vital, concepts. Provenience is an object's archaeological context, its precise location in the ground. Provenance is its ownership history, its journey through human hands since its discovery. One tells the story of an object’s role in the ancient world; the other, its life in the modern one.

The failure to distinguish between them, and more importantly, the loss of either, strips an artifact of its meaning. An object without provenience is archaeologically mute. An object without provenance is legally and ethically suspect. To understand the profound implications of these terms, we can turn to a specific example: a Cypro-Archaic terracotta figurine, likely from the sanctuary site of Achna. By examining what we know, and what we have lost, about this single object, we can unpack the critical roles that both provenience and provenance play in our engagement with the past.

A Case Study: The Achna Figurine

Our subject is a 40cm terracotta figure of a veiled goddess, her hands cupping her breasts in a gesture of fertility. Stylistically, she belongs to a type associated with the Iron Age sanctuary at Achna in Cyprus. Her mold-made construction and sophisticated details speak to the vibrant coroplastic workshops of the 6th century BC. This much we can deduce from the object itself. But its full story is divided into two separate, and incomplete, narratives.

The Provenience: A Lost Location The provenience of this figurine is, strictly speaking, unknown. While its style strongly suggests it originated at Achna, we lack the essential data of its discovery. Ideal provenience would mean we knew its exact three-dimensional coordinates within the archaeological site. We would know which stratum, or layer of soil, it was found in, and what other materials were found with it.

Was it discovered in a pit filled with hundreds of other votive offerings? This would confirm its function as a dedication to a deity. Was it found alongside fragments of incense burners and ritual vessels? This would help us reconstruct the specific religious practices at the sanctuary. Was it located near a kiln, alongside misfired examples and clay trimmings? This would identify it as a product of a local workshop, perhaps even the workshop itself.

This is not an isolated case for this type of object. A similar figurine in the Pierides Museum in Cyprus was acquired at an unknown date, its findspot unrecorded. Another, now in the Ashmolean Museum, was purchased in 1949, likewise stripped of its original context. Because these figurines entered collections or the art market without any such records, their provenience has been permanently lost. They were severed from their context, likely by a looter’s spade or during an early, unscientific excavation. All we have is an educated guess: “likely from Achna.” The objects have been reduced from pieces of primary evidence into beautiful but isolated data points. We have the what, but we have lost the where, the when, and the why of their ancient lives.

The Provenance: A Documented History In contrast, the figurine has a partial, yet informative, provenance. This is its post-excavation history of ownership. We know it was acquired by Sten Törnblom, a Swedish teacher, during his travels in the Mediterranean in the 1950s or 1960s. After his death in 1989, his collection was sold by his next of kin. It is at this point that a crucial piece of its modern identity was temporarily lost. Lacking Törnblom's own notes or expertise, the sellers and even the auction house catalogued the piece simply as a "Greek terracotta." Its specific Cypriot identity, so clear to a specialist, was obscured.

This detail highlights the fragility of provenance; without diligent research, even an object’s recent history and cultural attribution can be broken. A key part of our work has been to reunite this figure with its correct Cypriot identity. This re-established connection is crucial. It tells us that the figurine was out of the ground and in a European collection well before critical legal and ethical deadlines. This documented history, its provenance, gives it legitimacy in the modern world, even as its lost provenience diminishes its archaeological value.

The Archaeological Imperative: Why Provenience Matters

For an archaeologist, an artifact is not a treasure; it is a piece of information. Its value is derived almost entirely from its context. Provenience transforms an object from a mere curiosity into a key that can unlock a deeper understanding of the past.

An object’s position in the soil is not random. Archaeological sites are formed in layers, a principle known as stratigraphy. Like pages in a book, the deepest layers are the oldest, and the shallowest are the most recent. An object found in a sealed, undisturbed layer can be dated with relative precision. Its association with other datable artifacts, such as specific types of pottery or coins, helps to build a firm chronology. The Achna figurine, if found in a sealed Archaic stratum, would definitively confirm its 6th-century BC date. Without that context, its dating relies solely on stylistic parallels, which are often debated and revised.

Function is also revealed by provenience. A figurine found in a tomb has a different meaning than one found in a house or a sanctuary. In a tomb, it may be a grave good intended to serve the deceased in the afterlife. In a domestic context, it might be part of a household shrine. In a sanctuary, like the one presumed for our figurine, it is a votive offering, a physical prayer left for a god or goddess. Each context provides a different interpretation of the object’s purpose and the beliefs of the people who used it.

This informational potential is precisely what is destroyed by looting. When illicit diggers plunder a site, they are not conducting a careful excavation. They are hunting for sellable objects. They use bulldozers and pickaxes to tear through the earth, creating what archaeologists call "looters' pits." They discard anything they deem worthless—plain pottery, animal bones, soil samples, carbonized seeds—which are the very materials an archaeologist uses to reconstruct the site's environment, diet, economy, and chronology. They rip the valuable objects from their stratigraphic context, mixing layers and obliterating the site's "book" forever. The Achna figurine’s lost provenience is a direct consequence of this kind of destructive activity.

Even early archaeology is culpable. Nineteenth and early twentieth-century excavators were often driven by a desire to fill the museums of Europe and America with masterpieces. They prized whole pots over sherds and statues over their findspots. While their methods were more systematic than a looter's, the focus on the object over its context meant that vast amounts of crucial provenience data were never recorded and are now irretrievably lost. The result is that our great museums are filled with legions of archaeologically orphaned objects. We can admire their beauty, but their capacity to speak about the societies that created them has been severely hampered.

The Ethical and Legal Framework: Why Provenance Matters

If provenience gives an object its scientific soul, provenance gives it its legal and ethical legitimacy. In an art market rife with forgeries and stolen goods, a documented history of ownership is the single most important factor in establishing an object's authenticity and an owner's right to possess it.

Provenance as a Defense Against Forgery A skilled forger can replicate the material, style, and even the apparent age of an ancient artifact. What a forger cannot do is create a legitimate, verifiable, hundred-year-old history for their creation. An antiquity with a strong provenance—one that can be traced back through auction catalogues, collection inventories, scholarly publications, or old family photographs to the early 20th century or before—is exceptionally difficult to fake. Conversely, an object that appears on the market with no ownership history is an immediate red flag. A vague story about it being "in a Swiss family's collection since the 1950s" is a common and often unverifiable claim used to mask a recent origin, whether from a forger's workshop or a looter's pit.

Museums, Collectors, and the UNESCO 1970 Convention The question of ownership became a central international issue in the mid-20th century as source countries grew increasingly concerned about the pillaging of their cultural heritage. The landmark response was the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

This international treaty called upon signatory nations to work together to stop the illicit trade in cultural artifacts. The year 1970 became a crucial line in the sand. For museums and other institutional collectors, the convention changed the rules of acquisition. Major museums, such as the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have adopted acquisition policies based on this date. As a general rule, they will not acquire an antiquity unless it can be demonstrated that the object was outside its likely country of origin before 1970 or was legally exported from its country of origin after 1970.

This is why the provenance of the Achna figurine, incomplete as it is, is so significant. The knowledge that it was in the Swedish collection of Sten Törnblom in the 1950s and 60s places it firmly on the "right" side of the 1970 line. It provides the ethical and legal clearance that a museum would require to consider acquiring it today. An identical figurine appearing on the market for the first time tomorrow, with no documented history, would be considered untouchable by any reputable institution.

Private collectors are increasingly held to the same standard. There are three compelling reasons why a modern collector should prioritize provenance and the 1970 threshold:

1. Ethical Responsibility: Purchasing an object with no pre-1970 provenance directly encourages the modern looting of archaeological sites. The demand from the market is what fuels the supply from illicit diggers. To buy such an object is to become complicit in the destruction of the very history one purports to appreciate.
2. Legal Risk: An object illegally excavated and exported from its country of origin (e.g., Italy, Greece, Egypt, Turkey) remains the property of that nation. A collector who buys such a piece risks having it identified and reclaimed, resulting in a total financial loss and potential legal trouble.
3. Financial Prudence: In today’s market, provenance is value. An object with a clear, documented, pre-1970 provenance is a stable asset. It can be sold at major auction houses, donated to museums for a tax benefit, and passed on to heirs without issue. An unprovenanced object is a toxic asset. Its market is limited, its value is volatile, and it carries a permanent stain of suspicion. The sensible rule for any collector is simple: no provenance, no purchase.

Provenance Research: A New Detective Story The growing emphasis on ethical acquisition has created a new and vital professional field: provenance research. Museums, auction houses, and major private collectors now employ researchers who act as historical detectives. Their job is to trace the ownership history of artworks and antiquities. This involves poring over archives, old auction catalogues, dealer stock books, exhibition records, and family letters. They look for mentions of an object, a photograph of it on a shelf in a 1930s living room, or a shipping label on the back of a frame.

This meticulous work is essential for establishing due diligence. It helps museums avoid problematic acquisitions, provides collectors with security, and aids in the identification and restitution of art looted during moments of historical trauma, most notably the Nazi era. The rise of this profession underscores the fact that an object's modern story—its provenance—is now considered as important as its physical characteristics.

Conclusion: Preserving the Whole Story

The Achna figurine has survived for over two and a half millennia. It comes to us as an object with two stories, one of which is largely erased. Its lost provenience is a wound in the archaeological record, a silence where there should be a voice. We can analyze its form, but we can never fully reclaim its original meaning without the context that a looter's spade or a careless excavator destroyed.

Its provenance, however, offers a different kind of lesson. It is a record of the figurine's journey through modern hands, from a collector in Sweden to its current home. That journey saw its Cypriot identity temporarily lost, obscured by a simple "Greek terracotta" label. Part of our work has been to reunite the object with its correct cultural attribution, restoring a key part of its story that had been broken. This documented history is what protects it, giving it a legitimate place in the 21st century and ensuring it is not mistaken for a modern forgery or a recently looted artifact.

Provenience and provenance are the two essential pillars that support an antiquity’s value—one scientific, the other ethical. The first connects an object to its ancient past, the second secures its place in our present. As guardians of cultural heritage, whether as archaeologists, curators, or collectors, our responsibility is to preserve not just the physical object, but the integrity of both of its life stories. To neglect either is to fail in our stewardship of the past.