ONE of the world’s leading buyers of antiquities is at the heart of an inquiry to establish whether part of his multimillion-pound collection was illegally exported from the Middle East.

University College London has set up a committee of inquiry into the provenance of 650 Aramaic incantation bowls inscribed with magical texts, The Times has learnt.

The bowls were loaned to the university museum — the Petrie — by Martin Schoyen, a Norwegian tycoon who has built up one of the world’s finest collections of antiquities in private hands.

The bowls, which were loaned for research and cataloguing, are being stored by UCL while questions are asked about how they came to Europe. They were exported from Jordan, but their country of origin may have been Iraq, the site of ancient Mesopotamia.

Mr Schoyen’s collection also boasts fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Buddhist manuscripts.

Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, is among scholars who have questioned the provenance of the material. Now he is part of a University College investigation headed by David Freeman, founder and senior partner of D J Freeman, solicitors.

Michael Worton, UCL’s vice-provost, said that in setting up the committee of inquiry, they hoped to develop guidelines which will help other universities to handle antiquities which lack a detailed provenance.

He said when the bowls were lent to the Petrie in 1996 there was no specific regulation on the university accepting cultural objects: “Indeed, until recently, most universities have taken a relaxed approach to the acquisition of such objects, with academic staff acquiring and publishing research and teaching collections. To restrict such activities would have been seen as restricting academic freedom. However, in the 21st century new principles and policies are emerging. In 2002, the UK signed up to the 1970 Unesco convention on illicit cultural trade and in 2003 the UK implemented the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act. Intelligence on the pillaging of archaeological sites has greatly increased and attitudes are changing.”

The investigation has been prompted by allegations against Mr Schoyen in a documentary by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation with David Hebditch, a British documentary-maker. The collector complained unsuccessfully to Norway’s equivalent of the Press Complaints Commission and attempted to stop its screening.

Although Professor Worton also has some reservations about it, saying that it should not be broadcast in Britain because there may be some “inaccurate statements” in it, he was unable to ignore accusations that the bowls were illegally exported from their country of origin: “Allegations having been made, we must investigate. That is the correct moral approach.”

Atle Omland, a lecturer in archaeology at Oslo University, welcomed UCL’s investigation, saying that the material should be seized if it is found to have been taken illegally, even if Mr Schoyen had bought it in good faith. Like other scholars, he dismissed the argument that Mr Schoyen’s collecting passion had helped to save some the material: “That’s a typical answer collectors have, but when people buy it, they create a demand for it.”

Mr Schoyen could not be contacted yesterday.

TREASURE LIST

Martin Schoyen boasts arguably the largest collection of manuscripts to have been assembled in the 20th century, Among his 13,500 items spanning more than 5,000 years are treasures from:

• The Dead Sea Scrolls
  
• The Cairo Genizah of Hebrew MSS
  
• The Oxyrhynchus hoard of classical papyri
  
• The Dishna Biblical papyri

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