The 2025 Sir Charles Nicholson Annual Lecture

In early September 2025 the High Court of Australia ordered that an ancient stone sculpture from the Tiwanaku Culture must be returned to Bolivia. Heard in court as Palmanova Pty Ltd v Commonwealth of Australia, this landmark ruling was the first time that the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986 had been tested in court, and Australia's seemingly unique legal pathway for the return of cultural objects has been affirmed. This may signal a new opportunity for countries of origin who hope to see looted and trafficked cultural objects returned. Perhaps just as exciting, the Palmanova case provides extensive and unique precedent for how archaeological, art historical, and museological expert witnesses can be used in court for antiquities trafficking cases.

Associate Professor Donna Yates was one of the expert witnesses in this case, drawing on her combined expertise in criminological antiquities trafficking and the archaeology of Bolivia. In this talk, Yates will discuss the experience of being an archaeologist "on the stand" and the role that expertise played in the court's decision in this case. She will talk about the difficulties in providing evidence about the looting and trafficking of antiquities, and differences in what an archaeologist vs. what a court considers to be "possible". Ultimately the Palmanova case succeeded in the return of a cultural object when so many other cases failed. This shows that courts are ready to hear from archaeological experts, and we experts need to gather and present the evidence.

To close this talk, Yates will discuss her work with the EU-funded REVITALISER project. Based in Cyprus and focused on the Eastern Mediterranean as a starting point, REVITALISER seeks to collaboratively develop ways to collect the kinds of evidence about archaeological looting and trafficking that Australian courts are now ready to hear.

Dr Donna Yates is in Australia as part of the Sydney Institute of Criminology Art and Antiquities Crime Conference: Combating Art and Antiquities Crime: Australian and Transnational Perspectives on 21-22 November 2025.

The Sir Charles Nicholson Annual Lecture

Since 2017 an annual lecture has been held at the Nicholson Museum, the Chau Chak Wing Museum or online to honour collection founder Sir Charles Nicholson (1808-1903). The Sir Charles Nicholson Annual Lecture brings to Sydney an international or interstate archaeologist, curator or ancient historian to discuss current issues in Mediterranean, Egyptian and Near Eastern archaeological research and collections from around the globe. Previous lecturers have included Dr Irving Finkel of the British Museum, Assoc Professor Alice Stevenson of UCL, Dr Alexandra Fletcher of the British Museum, Dr Anastasia Christophilopoulou of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and Assoc. Professor Andrew Jamieson of the University of Melbourne.

For the 2025 Nicholson Lecture, tickets for members have been generously subsidised as part of the University of Sydney’s 175th Anniversary.