Posted on 05/16/2003 5:39:22 PM PDT by Utah Girl
U.S. investigators have recovered 951 items looted from Iraq's National Museum, but have not gained access to central bank vaults thought to contain priceless objects or a secret storage site known only to museum staff, the lead investigator said on Friday.
Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos, leader of the team investigating the museum's losses, was unable to give a firm figure of the number of items still missing from the museum's collection following the looting spree in the days after U.S. forces entered Baghdad.
In a briefing from Baghdad to reporters at the Pentagon, he said his team of 14 investigators has recovered 951 items, either by going out and retrieving them from various sites in Iraq or through a "no-questions-asked" policy toward anyone returning looted antiquities.
Some of the recovered items include one of the oldest known bronze relief bowls, a pottery jar from the 6th millennium BC, and one of the earliest known Sumerian statues, he said.
Among the many items still missing, he added, is the Sacred Vase of Warka, a Sumerian limestone bowl engraved with a depiction of the goddess In-nin, dating from 3000 BC.
He said this was one of 42 pieces or exhibits stolen from the gallery floor of the museum by looters. He said nine of these stolen items have been recovered, leaving 33 still missing. There are other items missing from other parts of the museum and its storage areas, he said.
Bogdanos said the museum kept incomplete records of its holdings and that his investigators have not gained access to key sites where antiquities are thought to be stored.
"The majority of the work remaining -- that of tracking down each of these missing pieces -- will likely take years," he said, calling for international cooperation in the effort.
UNDERGROUND VAULTS
Bogdanos said his team has not gained access to two underground vaults in the central bank of Iraq where museum staff says it stashed 15-20 boxes containing 6,744 pieces of gold and jewelry, including the treasure of Nimrod, over the past 13 years.
Bogdanos said the museum staff has produced only partial inventories for those items supposedly in the vaults, the accuracy of which cannot be verified until the vaults are opened.
"The vaults will be opened at an appropriate time by an appropriate authority. This team doesn't have the authority to open underground vaults of the central bank of Iraq," Bogdanos said. He refused to identify who he meant by an "appropriate authority" and did not give a time table for when the vaults would be opened.
Bogdanos added that museum staff have told investigators of the existence of a secret storage location where they have hidden additional items from the museum, but have refused to reveal the location of the site or its contents.
"Members of the museum staff have told us that they have sworn on the Koran not to reveal the location of that secret place," said Bogdanos, adding that staff members have suggested that the items there were taken from the museum's display cases.
Museum officials, Bogdanos said, "promised to provide the investigators with a complete inventory of the items stored in the secret place by the end of this week."
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