Iraqis selling Antiquities ( FLASHBACK 1996)

University of San Francisco ^ | June 23, 1996 | BARBARA CROSSETTE

[FairOpinion]

"After the war (1991 Gulf war), the selling started. Now stuff is just pouring out. They are selling everything. If this continues, there won't be an archaeological site left that won't be damaged."

With stringent economic sanctions against Iraq in place since 1990 and little relief in sight, art experts and archaeologists say precious artifacts from some of the world's oldest civilizations -- Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian among them -- are pouring into the international market mainly to raise cash in hard times.

Experts say they cannot estimate the total value of Iraqi antiquities reaching the market illegally, but given that even small individual pieces can be priced at $50,000 in some cases, and that there are so many objects involved, the figure probably runs into the millions of dollars.

Mesopotamian antiquities exported legally from the 19th century until the 1960s have fetched high prices -- in one case $12 million paid for an ancient palace relief. "

======

Well, while some artifacts may have been lost, but there are plenty that have made it to the international markets years ago. And maybe the currently looted artifacts were reproductions, or if they were originals, they will probably turn up somewhere, it's not as if we bombed the museum and destroyed them.

I think this puts things a bit more in context, than the whiners, who seem to claim that everything from the ancient civilizations have been lost, gone forever.

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[Steven W.]

This is an outrage! The Saddamites and liberal press no doubt started bringing this up so that when the truth came out - that Saddam had already cleared the shelves - they could continue to shield the evil regime and themselves, as so complicit in these regards, from further scorn & ridicule so well deserved for helping to prop up this despotic empire.

[Humidston]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn Saddam built on top of ruins and orchestrated the sales of the antiquities - just to establish his ownership over the entire history of his land.

Kind of reminds me of an animal - relieving himself on everything, just to prove his dominance.

[Dialup Llama]

As I understand it the main thing 'looted' were the computer hard drives cataloging the museum's collection. That's something you would do to cover up the fact the artifacts had already been sold off. Which is probably why the museum was closed for many years.

[Dialup Llama]

We all saw the end of Shindler's List where the remnants of the Nazi regime tried to flee with portable forms of wealth- diamonds, art etc... Same thing here.

[FairOpinion]

"That's something you would do to cover up the fact the artifacts had already been sold off. Which is probably why the museum was closed for many years. "
----

I think you are right. Ordinary Iraqis wouldn't dare steal and sell the artifacts, but I bet Saddam could and did.

Also I just did a search, and found general information about the Baghdad Museum, as part of description of Baghdad, on arab.net, and they mention that a number of pieces are reproductions -- obviously sufficient in number, that it was worth mentioning.


"Some of the objects on display here are reproductions, with their originals removed by conquering nations to be displayed in foreign museums. The Louvre in Paris, London's British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania Museum in the US all contain antiquities from ancient Mesopotamia. Some pieces have been returned, but the effective closure of the country seems to preclude any further returns for the foreseeable future."

http://www.arab.net/iraq/iq_baghdadsights.htm

[weegee]

If even small pieces are going for $50,000 then obviously someone is paying. Crack down on demand and the price will have to come down. No money in it and the crooks will move onto some other career for money.

[livius]

In addition to the fact that some of the big pieces were reproductions and that the regime had been involved in illegal antiquities trafficking for years anyway, I also read this morning in the Wall Street Journal that some of the most important pieces were believed to have been taken away by Saddam for display in his palaces. Their fate is unclear, and the convenient destruction of the catalogs makes tracking some of these things problematic.

The real reason for all the international "concern" appears in these sentences, and it's as true now as it was in 1996:

Sympathy for these Iraqis seems widespread among collectors and archaeologists in the United States, who are critical of continued sanctions against President Saddam Hussein's government.

In other words, the leftist pro-Saddam intellectual and academic world is simply staying true to form, even after we have moved from sanctions to war. For some reason, odious left-wing dictatorships attract "intellectuals" the way horse manure draws flies.

[from occupied ga]

In the stalls of Portobello Road and the shops of Bond Street, dealers offered him antiquities probably smuggled from Iraq, a modern nation in distress that sits astride the remains of several ancient civilizations.

And this is bad because? It's OK for official government looters to plunder the stuff for their own use, but it's not OK for ordinary citizens to sell it. I guess I just don't understand why a "government archeologist" is substantively different than a tomb robber other thatn the government archaeologists gets paid with money already looted from taxpayers to loot tombs.

[from occupied ga]

Crack down on demand and the price will have to come down. No money in it and the crooks will move onto some other career for money.

Practically speaking, how?

[FairOpinion]

Actually I think most of the pieces that have been sold internationally were probably done by Saddam, I doubt that ordinary Iraqis had the means to do it, and were probably too terrify to even try.

I bet that Saddam took most of the artifacts, sold them and put the money into Swiss bank accounts.

But the other side is, that the artifacts from the museum are not lost, they are just somewhere else, and most of it was done before we even set foot in Iraq.

[from occupied ga]

I bet that Saddam took most of the artifacts, sold them and put the money into Swiss bank accounts.

But only the very best I'm sure, and probably got his cut of the rest.

[FairOpinion]

"I also read this morning in the Wall Street Journal that some of the most important pieces were believed to have been taken away by Saddam for display in his palaces. "

----

Thanks for mentioning this. I went and looked it up, here are some excerpts ( full article requires subscription, so I won't repoduce in its entirety). Note the museum has been closed to the public for years, so how do we even know what was or wasn't there, and most pieces could have left the country in Saddam's pockets. In fact, how do we know, that it wasn't the fedayeen, who "Looted" and broke the cases, to cover up the fact that the museum has really been looted way back who knows when by Saddam.

EXCERPT:
Iraq's Plundered Treasures from Wall Street Journal, April 16,2003
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB10504503813207600,00.html?mod=special%5Fpage%5Firaq%5F3

"Following the 1991 Gulf War, thousands of artifacts from museums across Iraq vanished, only to resurface on the international Middle Eastern art market, where prices have been climbing in recent years. "An enormous amount has been illegally exported since 1991," says Christopher Walker, a deputy keeper at the British Museum in London. Over the past decade, he says, British customs officials have brought to the museum "maybe hundreds" of objects that they suspected were smuggled out of Iraq.

Complicating the cataloging task is the neglected state of the Baghdad museum, which had been closed to the public during much of the 1990s. Most of the museum's records were kept in a card catalog, most of which looters destroyed. Until recently, only high-ranking Iraqi officials and some international curators had access to the collection. Many curators believe Saddam Hussein displayed some of the most valuable items in his palaces. It isn't clear whether these pieces were destroyed by bombs or stashed far away from Baghdad.

In fact, many of the museum's most valuable pieces were small enough to fit in a pocket. Among them: A seven-inch-tall limestone statuette of a praying prince, circa 3300 B.C., and a series of ivories about five inches tall, including a Nubian figure carrying a lion, dating to the eighth century B.C.

[Trailerpark Badass]

The hand-wringers and terminal doubters won't like this.

[FairOpinion]

"That's something you would do to cover up the fact the artifacts had already been sold off. Which is probably why the museum was closed for many years. "

----

I found an article which substantiates what you are saying:

Sensing the treasures could be in peril, museum curators secretly removed antiquities from their display cases before the war and placed them in storage vaults - but to no avail. The doors of the vaults were opened or smashed, and everything inside was taken, museum workers said.

That led one museum employee to suspect that people familiar with the museum may have participated in the theft.

``The fact that the vaults were opened suggests employees of the museum may have been involved,'' said the staffer, who declined to be identified. ``To ordinary people, these are just stones. Only the educated know the value of these pieces.''

http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,6281650%255E25777,00.html

[weegee]

Let's call it what it is, hot merchandise. If those who buy hot merchandise were to say, "naw, $50,000's too much, I'm putting myself at risk if I'm ever discovered with this... $5,000 or no deal" then the price would fall. Those involved in selling the stolen items would face the same punishments for less reward.

Stolen antiquities are a big deal in every country.

[from occupied ga]

Stolen antiquities are a big deal in every country.

Which would indicate that there really isn't any good way to cut down on their sale. By stolen do you mean that stolen from the ground before the government thieves got around to stealing them or stolen from real existing owners?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

The Ruskies did it too, when the invaded Eastern Europe. Stole priceless treasures from Germany and Poland. I'm sure this will be referenced in the press articles as background. NOT!

[Diddle E. Squat]

bump