Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The Far East; The Near East and Africa, Volume IV

890D.927/88: Telegram

The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul General at Beirut (Palmer)

Washington, January 5, 1939—7 p.m.

Committee for the Excavation of Antioch has received information from Musées Nationaux in Paris and from another source that the local Government in the Hatay² does not intend to honor the Committee’s excavation contract but will enforce the Turkish antiquities law, which forbids any exportation whatsoever of archaeological finds. This would cause the Committee to discontinue its work. McEwan³ is said to have already been refused a division concerning two stelas.

Article 14 of the Mandate⁴ seems clearly to oblige the Mandatory to divide finds with the excavator unless division is impossible for scientific reasons. Furthermore, the contract entered into between the Committee for Excavation and the High Commissioner on January 1, 1937, valid for 6 years, is said to contain specific provision for such division and for exportation. Please discuss the matter with the High Commission and state that your Government assumes that the Hatay authorities will scrupulously honor their obligations under the terms of the Mandate and contract. If these representations should not be sufficient, please telegraph your recommendations regarding the advisability of an approach by you direct to the Hatay Government and of representations by our Embassies in Paris and possibly Ankara. Immediate reply desired.

Welles

2. Formerly the Sanjak of Alexandretta.
3. Dr. Calvin W. McEwan, Director of Oriental Institute Expedition at Antioch.
4. Quoted in convention between the United States and France, signed at Paris, April 4, 1024, Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. i, pp. 741, 744.