[muawiyah]

Little was known of the ancient civilizations on exhibit in that Iraqi museum outside of the Bible and the Koran until about a century ago.

This was not "their civilization" - it was rather the common heritage of humanity. No doubt there's more in the ground to be dug up.

This experience demonstrates why antiquities should never be left in just the home country - as discovered they need to be spread around so that a single event can't destroy all of the materials.

The looters will probably take as good care of the antiquities as did the museum keepers - maybe better! All we have here is a change of ownership - not the destruction of the materials, and appropriate funding plus information from the catalogs will enable the exhibits to be put back together (in time).

[JoeFromCA]

Actually few if any of these priceless artifacts will ever be found. Similar looting occurred after the Gulf War, with thousands of items stolen, and only about 4 were ever found. A few items will find their way into private collections, but most will simply be used and abused until they disappear, if not melted down or disassembled for trinket value. These items did not represent Arabic or Muslim history, but rather represented the history of the world.

[weegee]

The problem that comes up is that the location and date of items is unknown even though they are known to be authentic.

There is a gold museum in Peru that contains looted treasures and it is of some historical value but not nearly as much as if they knew what regions different items came from.

I will say this. Ancient Jewish temples are being plowed under in the Middle East with no thought to historical preservation. Either cultural past has special regard or it doesn't, the journalists don't get to pick and choose.