Posted on 05/02/2003 8:17:19 AM PDT by ironman
Investigators and experts are mounting an international initiative to recover artifacts stolen in the catastrophic looting of Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities. But their efforts are sobered by the knowledge that stolen museum pieces -- especially those lost in massive quantities -- are almost never recovered.
The Iraqi museum held 175,000 items before the war. It is not clear how many of them were plundered, but the losses will dwarf the estimated 2,000 to 4,000 objects looted from nine regional Iraqi museums in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
MISSING ANTIQUITIES Loss Estimates Are Cut on Iraqi Artifacts, but Questions Remain By ALAN RIDING
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 30 — Even though many irreplaceable antiquities were looted from the National Museum of Iraq during the chaotic fall of Baghdad last month, museum officials and American investigators now say the losses seem to be less severe than originally thought.
Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items — ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. — had been traced.
"Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000," said Colonel Bogdanos, who in civilian life is an assistant Manhattan district attorney. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/903735/posts
Really - and the NYT generally tries to make things look as bad as possible. Maybe the WPost and NYT got each other's versions of the story...
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