EU and UK Rules for Cypriot Antiquities: Export, Import and Return in Europe Today

A Cypriot antiquity that is bought, sold or moved in Europe today meets four sets of rules: the Republic of Cyprus's own Antiquities Law, the European Union's rules on export, import and return, the separate British statutes that have applied since Brexit, and, for objects in Switzerland, a bilateral agreement between Bern and Nicosia. They were written at different times for different purposes, but almost all of them ask the same two questions: when did the object leave the country where it was made or found, and did it leave lawfully? For Cypriot material those questions have unusually good answers. For more than a century the island exported antiquities through lawful channels that issued paper: the Cyprus Museum's saleroom labels and lead seals, Government export licences, and the printed catalogues of the London and New York sales. That paper dates an export, and the dates are the ones these laws turn on. The two pieces in the photograph at the head of this page show it working. A juglet and the face of a figurine were bought from the Cyprus Museum in 1941 by an Australian soldier stationed on the island; when his family offered them to the RD Milns Antiquities Museum at the University of Queensland, the museum asked the Cypriot authorities about their status and was told that both had been legally purchased in 1941, on the strength of the labels they still carried [18] (photograph: Carl Warner, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; the family's story is in brought home from Cyprus).

Accession in 2004 and the Cyprus export permit

The Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. Protocol No 10 to the Act of Accession suspends the application of EU law "in those areas of the Republic of Cyprus in which the Government of the Republic of Cyprus does not exercise effective control", that is, in the occupied north [2]. In the areas the Government controls, the island became part of the single market and the EU customs territory.

Accession did not open the border for antiquities. The free movement of goods inside the EU has always allowed member states to restrict the movement of "national treasures possessing artistic, historic or archaeological value", the phrase of Article 36 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union that the return Directive repeats [5, Art. 2]. Cyprus kept its own control. Under section 27 of the Antiquities Law, Cap. 31, no antiquity may leave the Republic without a licence from the Department of Antiquities, whether it is going to Athens or to New York, and since the 1996 amendment such licences are issued for temporary exhibition, loan to a museum or university, or scientific study, and not for the export of a private collection [1]. Illegal export carries up to five years' imprisonment or a fine of €45,000 [1]. The history of that law, from the firmans to 1996, is set out in the legal export of Cypriot antiquities and licensed export, 1974 to 1996; this page starts where those end.

The practical result is that no Cypriot antiquity has lawfully left the island for private sale since 1996, and very few did after 1974. Everything lawfully on the European market today left before then, and its lawful status rests on the paper of the period when it left.

Leaving the EU and returning within it: Regulation 116/2009 and the Directives

The EU's first cultural-goods measures came with the single market in 1993. Council Regulation (EEC) No 3911/92 required a licence to export cultural goods from the Community; it was codified as Council Regulation (EC) No 116/2009 [3]. Article 2 makes "the export of cultural goods outside the customs territory of the Community" subject to an export licence [3, Art. 2(1)]. For archaeological objects more than 100 years old that are the products of excavations and finds, of archaeological sites or of archaeological collections, the licence is needed "whatever the value" [3, Annex I]. The licence is issued by the member state where the object was "lawfully and definitively located on 1 January 1993", or where it came to be lawfully afterwards [3, Art. 2(2)]. A member state may dispense with it for archaeological objects "of limited archaeological or scientific interest", but only if "they are not the direct product of excavations, finds or archaeological sites within a Member State, and that their presence on the market is lawful" [3, Art. 2(2)].

For a Cypriot pot this has two consequences. A piece inside Cyprus cannot reach a buyer outside the EU without a Department licence under Cap. 31 and, at the same time, an EU export licence that Cyprus would have to issue; neither is available for a private sale. A piece that has lawfully been in Germany or France since the 1960s, by contrast, is licensed for export by that country, which assesses its own record of the object, not the Cypriot one.

Council Directive 93/7/EEC of 15 March 1993 gave member states a civil action in each other's courts for the return of national treasures unlawfully removed from their territory [4]. It was recast as Directive 2014/60/EU, which member states had to bring into force by 18 December 2015 [5, Art. 19]. Under the recast Directive:

• a "cultural object" is one that a member state classifies or defines, before or after its removal, as a national treasure, and "unlawfully removed" means removed in breach of that state's rules on national treasures or of Regulation 116/2009 [5, Art. 2];
• return proceedings must be brought within three years of the requesting state's central authority learning where the object is and who holds it, and in any event within 30 years of the removal, or 75 years for objects in public collections and in the inventories of ecclesiastical or other religious institutions [5, Art. 8(1)];
• the Directive "shall apply only to cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State on or after 1 January 1993", though a state may apply its procedure to earlier removals if it chooses [5, Arts 14, 15];
• the recitals add that return is due "regardless of the date of accession" of the requesting state, so Cyprus can claim objects removed between 1993 and its accession in 2004 [5, recital 10];
• ownership after return is governed by the law of the requesting state [5, Art. 13].

The Directive also sets the standard of care that the market now applies. When a court orders return, it awards the possessor "fair compensation", paid by the requesting state, but only if the possessor shows "due care and attention" in acquiring the object. The court is to consider "the documentation on the object's provenance, the authorisations for removal required under the law of the requesting Member State", the price paid and whether a register of stolen objects was consulted [5, Art. 10]. Heirs are not protected beyond the person they inherited from: "in the case of a donation or succession, the possessor shall not be in a more favourable position than the person from whom he acquired the object" [5, Art. 10]. The authorisation for removal required under Cypriot law is the Department's export licence; for a piece bought from the Cyprus Museum, the saleroom label and seal are the evidence that it was sold for export.

Imports into the EU: Regulation 2019/880 and why Cypriot objects fall outside it

Regulation (EU) 2019/880 on the introduction and the import of cultural goods is the newest and most discussed of the EU rules. It works in two stages [6, Arts 3, 16]:

• from 28 December 2020, the introduction into the EU of cultural goods "removed from the territory of the country where they were created or discovered in breach of the laws and regulations of that country" is prohibited, whatever their age or value [6, Art. 3(1)];
• from the date the Commission's electronic system became operational, "or at the latest from 28 June 2025", the import of the goods in Part B of its Annex needs an import licence, and of those in Part C an importer statement [6, Art. 16(2)]. Both are made through the ICG (Import of Cultural Goods) electronic system, which has been mandatory since 28 June 2025 [7].

Part B covers "products of archaeological excavations (including regular and clandestine) or of archaeological discoveries on land or underwater" and dismembered elements of monuments and archaeological sites, if more than 250 years old, "whatever the value" [6, Annex Part B]. Part C, the importer statement, covers other categories over 200 years old and worth €18,000 or more per item, including "antiquities, such as inscriptions, coins and engraved seals" [6, Annex Part C].

The evidence rule is the one that matters for provenance. The holder applying for a licence must show that the goods "have been exported from the country where they were created or discovered in accordance with the laws and regulations of that country", or that no such laws existed when they left [6, Art. 4(4)]. Instead, the holder may show lawful export from the last country where the goods were kept for more than five years, other than for temporary use, transit, re-export or transhipment, in two cases: where the country of creation or discovery "cannot be reliably determined", or where the goods left it "before 24 April 1972", the date the 1970 UNESCO Convention entered into force [6, Art. 4(4)]. The evidence is to take the form of export certificates or licences "where the country in question has established such documents for the export of cultural goods at the time of the export" [6, Art. 4(5)]. The licence itself "shall not be construed to be evidence of licit provenance or ownership" [6, Art. 4(3)].

None of this applies to an ancient Cypriot object. Article 1(2) states that the Regulation "does not apply to cultural goods which were either created or discovered in the customs territory of the Union" [6, Art. 1(2)]. Cyprus is in that territory, so a Cypriot pot, figurine or limestone head needs no EU import licence, even when it comes in from London, Zurich or New York. Because the exclusion is met if either the making or the finding happened in the EU, a Cypriot-made object later found in the Levant or Egypt is outside the Regulation as well. A non-Cypriot object found in Cyprus, such as an Egyptian or Phoenician import excavated on the island, is also excluded, because it was discovered there.

The Regulation still shapes the market in Cypriot material indirectly. EU auction houses and buyers have built their checks around its evidence rule, and Article 4(4) and (5) describe exactly the documents a Cypriot export left behind: a dated licence from the country of discovery, issued under the laws of the time. Cypriot objects are protected inside the EU by the return Directive instead, and an EU buyer asks for the same file.

The United Kingdom after Brexit

The United Kingdom left the EU on 31 January 2020, and EU law ceased to apply at the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. Two European routes closed. The Return of Cultural Objects Regulations 1994, which implemented the return Directive and let a member state such as Cyprus sue in the British courts, were revoked from that date, saving only claims already made [11]. Regulation 2019/880, which had become retained law, was revoked in Great Britain on 24 September 2021 [12]. Northern Ireland follows EU rules on these goods under the Windsor Framework [14]. In Great Britain three British instruments remain.

The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act 2003. A person commits an offence "if he dishonestly deals in a cultural object that is tainted, knowing or believing that the object is tainted" [8, s. 1(1)]. An object is tainted if, "after the commencement of this Act", someone excavates it or removes it from a building, structure or monument of historical, architectural or archaeological interest, and the excavation or removal is an offence; it is immaterial whether that happened in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, or whether the offence is under British law "or under the law of any other country or territory" [8, s. 2]. Dealing covers acquiring, disposing of, importing and exporting, and the maximum sentence on indictment is seven years [8, ss. 1(3), 3]. The Act came into force on 30 December 2003. Three limits follow from its text. It is not retrospective: a pot that left Cyprus in 1965, or in 1985, cannot be tainted under it. It catches excavation and removal, not unlicensed export. And it requires dishonesty together with knowledge or belief, so an honest seller is not caught. A pot dug illegally in Cyprus in 2010, on the other hand, is tainted in England.

The Cultural Property (Armed Conflicts) Act 2017. This Act implemented the 1954 Hague Convention and its two Protocols in British law, and Part 4 is written for occupied territory. Property is "unlawfully exported cultural property" if it was exported from a territory that at the time "was territory of a state that was a party to the First or Second Protocol" and "was occupied by another state", and the export was against the law of the territory or "any rule of international law" [9, s. 16(1), (3)]. Whether territory was occupied is judged by Article 42 of the Hague Regulations of 1907, and a certificate from the Secretary of State on the point is conclusive evidence [9, s. 16(5), (6)]. Cyprus acceded to the Convention and the First Protocol on 9 September 1964 [10], so an object exported from the occupied north after the Turkish invasion of 1974 can fall within the definition. It does not matter whether the export came before or after the section took effect [9, s. 16(2)]. The offence is to deal in such property "knowing or having reason to suspect that it has been unlawfully exported", a lower threshold than the 2003 Act's "knowing or believing"; the maximum sentence is seven years, and the court may order forfeiture [9, ss. 17, 18]. The offence "does not apply to property imported into the United Kingdom before this section comes into force", that is, before 12 December 2017 [9, s. 17(2)]. A piece in a British collection since the 1960s is untouched by it; a piece of Cypriot church art or archaeology exported from the occupied north and brought to Britain since then can fall within it. The looting of the occupied areas is set out in looting in occupied northern Cyprus and the occupied north.

Export licensing of objects already in Britain. The United Kingdom controls the export of objects of cultural interest made more than 50 years before export, under the Export of Objects of Cultural Interest (Control) Order 2003 [13; 14]. An object worth less than £65,000 that was not found in British soil or waters may be exported under the Open General Export Licence without an individual application [13, para. 1(k)]. Above that, an individual licence is needed from the Export Licensing Unit at Arts Council England; if the object has been in the United Kingdom for more than 50 years it can be referred to an expert adviser and the Reviewing Committee, and if it was imported within the last 50 years the applicant supplies proof of import [14]. Almost every Cypriot pot, lamp and figurine leaves under the open licence. The British licence concerns British heritage only: it says nothing about whether the object left Cyprus lawfully, or whether the buyer's country will admit it. The selling side is set out in selling Cypriot antiquities in the UK.

Switzerland and its agreement with Cyprus

Switzerland, long a transit point for the trade, implemented the 1970 UNESCO Convention through the Federal Act of 20 June 2003 on the International Transfer of Cultural Property (Cultural Property Transfer Act, SR 444.1), in force since 1 June 2005 [15]. Article 7 of the Act allows the Federal Council to conclude bilateral agreements that enforce another state's export law, for cultural property "of significant importance to the cultural heritage of the contracting state" [15]. The agreement with Cyprus was signed on 11 January 2013 at La Chaux-de-Fonds [16] and entered into force on 15 February 2014 [15]. Under it, listed cultural property may be imported into either country only if the other's export rules have been followed, and either state may sue in the other's courts for the return of listed property illegally imported into the other's territory after the agreement took effect; in Switzerland the claim must be brought within one year of the authorities learning where the object is, and within 30 years of its removal, and a good-faith purchaser who must return an object is compensated by the claimant state [15]. The Cypriot list runs from prehistory to the fifteenth century AD [15]. As with the EU Directive, the agreement looks forward: it does not reach an object that left Cyprus, or entered Switzerland, before it took effect. The Kanakaria mosaics, sold in Geneva in 1988, belong to the period before it (see the Kanakaria mosaics).

The evidence against relying on export paper

These rules reward an export date and an export document. The record shows four ways in which that is not the whole story, and each needs to be stated.

First, lawful export is not lawful excavation. The European and British rules ask whether an object left Cyprus lawfully. They do not ask whether it came out of the ground lawfully. Much of the material collected in Cyprus between 1963 and 1973 was dug illicitly and then declared, licensed and exported under Cypriot law. Samuel Hardy has argued that a large part of the island's collections of that period came from illicit digging by Greek Cypriots within state control; read closely, his "almost half" is 35 of the 77 objects with a recorded find-spot in the Severis catalogues, 31 of them from the cemetery of Alaas, by a method he himself calls "crude" [19, pp. 459, 470]. His figures and their limits are set out in collecting under the silent accord, 1963 to 1973. A licence of 1970 makes such a piece lawful under every rule on this page; it does not make its digging lawful.

Second, the paper can be false or absent. A Cypro-Archaic horse-and-rider offered at £2,500 by a London gallery in 2016 carried a provenance from a German private collection "purchased at auction in the 1970s/1980s"; the Department matched it by photograph and dimensions to the registered collection of Christakis Hadjiprodromou in Famagusta, looted after 1974, and the Metropolitan Police returned it in July 2016 [17, p. 36]. In 1976 Christie's in London offered 78 Cypriot antiquities with no history, among them 28 Chalcolithic picrolite pendants, some of which were identified as Hadjiprodromou pieces and recovered for Cyprus [17, p. 35] (see the Hadjiprodromou collection). The Department's own investigator has written that proving looting, theft or illicit export "is very difficult and in most cases impossible, unless the objects have been recorded in official archives in the past" [17, p. 36]. The law's reliance on documents cuts both ways: an object with no recorded history can be neither cleared nor condemned.

Third, the date limits leave old exports beyond reach. The return Directive applies to removals from 1 January 1993, the British Acts to excavation after 30 December 2003 and to occupied-territory imports after 12 December 2017, and the Swiss agreement to imports into Switzerland after February 2014. Most objects that left Cyprus before those dates are outside every court procedure described here. The Department of Antiquities therefore works mainly through requests for withdrawal and voluntary returns, set out in policing and monitoring, and an undocumented object is in practice judged by the auction houses and buyers rather than by a court.

Fourth, recovery under these rules costs the claimant state money. The Directive and the Swiss agreement both oblige Cyprus to compensate a possessor who shows due care [5, Art. 10; 15]. Paying to recover objects is not new for the Republic or the Church of Cyprus, which bought objects on the market for decades, as set out in the state as buyer. At the top end of the market a single limestone head or picrolite figure can sell for six figures (see the economics of looting), and compensation is assessed "according to the circumstances of the case" [5, Art. 10].

What the paperwork proves for an object on the market today

The dates these rules turn on, and the Cypriot documents that speak to each, are these.

The documents themselves can be checked. The Department of Antiquities keeps copies of old export licences and will confirm them: a Red Polished jug offered at Bonhams in London on 2 October 2014 came with a copy of a Cypriot Government export licence dated 20 October 1964, which the Department found in its archive and confirmed, and a Bichrome bowl at a London gallery in 2016 with a Cyprus Museum lead export tag on its handle was likewise verified [17, pp. 37–38]. The Anderson juglet at the head of this page was cleared on its 1941 saleroom labels [18]. How such labels and licences look, and how to read them, is set out in Cypriot antiquities export licences and labels and how the Cyprus Museum sold antiquities.

For an owner, heir or buyer the position is this. Owning and selling a Cypriot antiquity that left the island lawfully is legal in the EU, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and none of the rules on this page applies retrospectively to a piece that has been abroad since before 1974. What they reward is a dated history, and much of the evidence for one is held outside the family: in the Department's licence archive, in museum registers and in old sale catalogues. Where a piece has a label, a seal, a licence or an old catalogue entry, or where it has none and the family wants to know where it stands, the next step is to contact us: we can help read the paper, identify the object through /identify, and advise on a sale, a donation or a return. Declared pieces can be sold in specific circumstances, and when the answer depends on the details, the details are worth sending.