Ancient artifacts looted

[Brian G Turner]

Hardly a humanitarian issue - but there's something insiduous about looting museums. Is it because of an unspoken notion of world heritage? Either way, considering the richness of Mesopotamian archaeology, this is indeed an extremely sad event.

Looters grab priceless objects from Iraqi museums

 

[Brian G Turner]

Well, the search has begun to trace looted items:

International effort to recover stolen Iraqi treasures

 

[Brian G Turner]

Advisors quit over museum looting

 

[Brian G Turner]

More on the story of the missing Iraqi historical treasures:

Looted Iraqi art starts to surface

 

[Brian G Turner]

Baghdad museum treasures recovered

Apparently the stuff has started turning up at border checks.

However, it's not just the museum that was vulnerable - apparently there's concern about diggers having been taken to archaeological sites. I'm sure I read at least one source in New Scientist magazine claiming that 90% of Iraq's archaeology is still uncovered.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Good news for anyone following the issue of the missing Mesopotamian treasures from Iraq:

Baghdad treasures 'mostly intact'

Here's a great quote:

"US investigators working at the museum slashed the number of antiquities listed as missing from about 170,000 to 3,000 after a secret storage vault was uncovered this week."

 

[X Q mano]

Looting museums and burning books... Two doubleplusungood things to do...

Good thing they're starting to recover the stuff, but I bet a lot of it's been lost, perhaps forever...

 

[Brian G Turner]

According to the article, though, the majority has already been recovered.

Of course, there are still some major items missing. Better than losing everything, though.

 

[Brian G Turner]

More missing artifacts are slowly returning to the Iraq museum:

Iraqi museum recovers priceless vase

 

[Brian G Turner]

It's not all good news though -

Looters riddle ancient Iraqi sites with holes