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Raiders of the Lost Art
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Mark Dawkins
Apr 21, 2003, 4:59:36 AM4/21/03
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/20/wloot20.xml
The Telegraph
Raiders of the Lost Art
(Filed: 20/04/2003)
The plundering of Iraq's antiquities looked like an act of random
vengeance but a new and more sinister picture is emerging. William
Langley reveals that many of the 170,000 missing artefacts are
speeding through the underground art market into the hands of foreign
collectors
It's fast, easy and encouragingly cheap to enter the booming market in
Iraqi antiquities. How about an early Sumerian glass-beaded necklace
for only $24? A 2,000-year-old bronze arrowhead for $14? Or an ancient
cuneiform tablet, moulded from Mesopotamian clay, and bearing the
imprint of a barter deal for sheep or wine, for $1.25? They can all be
found within a few seconds on ebay and other websites on the internet,
and there's plenty more on the way.
The sacking of Iraq's National Museum last week may at first have
looked like an act of random vengeance against a convenient emblem of
the state. Why else would a people loot their own history? Especially
a people so closely connected to a past of incomparable richness.
The more the scale of the losses became apparent - at least 170,000
items are missing or destroyed - the less sense it seemed to make. Who
had done it? And what would the plunder be good for in the slums of
Saddam City? Impressing the neighbours?
But even as the world of antiquities reeled from a tragedy that Paul
Zimansky, the eminent American archaeologist, likened to the burning
of the library at Alexandria in classical times, a new and more
sinister picture of what happened in Baghdad was emerging. It now
appears that the looting of the museum was neither spontaneous nor
random. In all probability, it was planned well in advance of the
American-led invasion, and the thieves almost certainly benefited from
inside help.
Interpol and FBI agents who have been brought in to investigate
believe the most valuable pieces were stolen to order, and are already
on their way to Europe, America or Japan. "The vaults where the best
pieces are kept, were opened with keys," says McGuire Gibson, the
president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad.
"Looters coming in off the streets, don't usually have keys, do they?
It appears to have been a deliberate, planned action. My feeling is
that it was organised abroad."
Witnesses have spoken of seeing well-dressed men with walkie-talkies
at the scene, and of artefacts being transported away in orderly
convoys of vans rather than over the heads of the crowd. "We already
have reports of exhibits being offered for sale in Switzerland and
Japan," says Karl-Heinz Kind, Interpol's specialist officer for art
and antiquity trafficking. "Even in a war zone, even with the country
practically sealed off, these things can move with incredible speed."
Last night Jordanian custom officers reported that they had
confiscated some exhibits looted from the Iraqi National Museum, the
first stolen items to be recovered. But the rescued artefacts were
merely 41 photographs and four oil paintings of Saddam Hussein.
To those familiar with the sophisticated international market in
stolen antiquities, the wholesale plundering and rapid dispersal of a
great museum's contents is all too credible. "Archaeological and
cultural organisations had been warning of attacks like these for
months," says Dr Neil Brodie, of the Illicit Antiquities Research
Centre in Cambridge. "But it seems nobody was listening."
Long before the latest war began, millions of pounds worth of Iraq's
ancient treasures were quietly flooding each year into the hands of
Western and Far Eastern collectors. There is a sad irony in this, for
if Saddam Hussein could boast of one good thing in the course of his
30-year dictatorship it was his vigorous early programme to protect
the nation's cultural heritage.
Soon after Saddam's Ba'athists came to power in 1967, harsh laws were
passed to prevent the export of antiquities. "And they worked," says
Richard Zetter, of the University of Pennsylvania, a leading authority
on Mesopotamian history. "Virtually nothing was allowed out, money was
put into museums, and we all applauded and considered it a model for
the region."
But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the weakening of Saddam's grip
on power - at least beyond his Baghdad and Tikrit strongholds - and
the dire economic circumstances in the country began to render the
laws far less effective. Regional museums and important archaeological
sites around the country became easy prey for thieves, whose booty was
spirited out of the country by highly organised gangs, which developed
around the trade. "After the Gulf War," says Mr Zetter, "smuggling
became a profession." In the West, where Iraqi antiquities had a
long-standing cachet, a ready market was waiting.
There was more. Preoccupied by the business of staying in power,
Saddam lost interest in history - except for his own place in it.
Money for museums dried up, many of the archaeological sites were
effectively abandoned, and the scholars and curators at the heart of
the nation's conservation programme gave up the struggle. "Their cars
were commandeered," says Mr Zetter, "their telephones didn't work,
their salaries were frozen. People just drifted away from
antiquities."
To make limited resources stretch further, thousands of antiquities
were moved from small provincial museums to Baghdad in the unfortunate
belief that they would be safer.
In recent years Saddam's own officials appear to have given the stamp
of approval to the lucrative business of selling antiquities abroad.
Last year a large sculptural frieze, originating from a 3,000-year-old
Assyrian palace in north eastern Iraq, weighing more than a tonne and
measuring more than six feet square turned up for sale on the British
market. Art experts believe it unlikely that such a major piece could
have been exported without the acquiescence of someone in authority.
Julian Radcliffe, the chairman of the Art Loss Register, the
organisation which indentified the frieze, says: "There may have been
theft from Iraqi museums by their own government working with the
staff or by criminal elements working with the staff. Curators have
often been worried about keeping the roof on the building of the
museums they work in and desperately need the money to pay for it."
It is hoped that the frieze will end up back in Iraq in due course. In
the meantime, a group of nine archaeologists from the British Museum
are being drafted in to help the salvage and recovery operation at the
Baghdad museum. "We are uniquely placed to do something to help our
Iraqi colleagues," says Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director.
It is clear that a catastrophe has befallen the cultural heritage of
Iraq,"
And the devastation continues. The latest target of the looters is the
museum at Nebuchadnezzar's palace - home of the hanging gardens of
Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Thieves smashed
their way in through a brick wall, stealing statues, vases, burial
masks and relics of the ancient Babylonian kings.
The galleries were completely stripped, and the floors left littered
with broken glass and debris. Ahmed Mansour, 37, who lives nearby
said: "This is one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world.
I cannot believe that people would want to steal from it. They have no
respect for our ancient culture and they do not care about the future
of Iraq."
Horrified by the scale of the plundering, many Iraqis are blaming the
US troops for not mounting an effective guard on the museums - and
they are not alone. Last week three advisers on cultural affairs to
President George W Bush resigned in protest at the alleged failure of
the US forces to protect Iraq's treasures. "This tragedy was not
prevented due to our nation's inaction," wrote Martin Sullivan, the
chairman of the White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee, in a
resignation letter.
Others are less inclined to blame weary and wary young Marines,
freshly arrived in a conquered capital that they had expected might
lay on a bloodbath.
Behind the looting of the National Museum lies a triumph of street
smartness over military intelligence. The Pentagon may have been
unsure how the battle for Baghdad would play out, but the local gangs,
flush with orders from wealthy overseas collectors, seem to have
anticipated that the city's fall would be swift and made their plans
accordingly.
Certainly Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco, the
United Nations educational and cultural agency, knows whom to blame.
"It is those bandits who looted their own heritage," he said, at a
meeting of 30 Iraqi and world antiquities experts in Paris. "These
were conditions of confusion and turmoil, and they took full
advantage."
Even as he was speaking, the lost treasures of Iraq - a 5,000-year
trove of learning and beauty - were speeding through the channels of
the underground art market into the hands of foreign collectors. If
the prices seem reasonable it's because there is plenty to go around.
Telegraph Group Limited 2003
The Telegraph
Raiders of the Lost Art
(Filed: 20/04/2003)
The plundering of Iraq's antiquities looked like an act of random
vengeance but a new and more sinister picture is emerging. William
Langley reveals that many of the 170,000 missing artefacts are
speeding through the underground art market into the hands of foreign
collectors
It's fast, easy and encouragingly cheap to enter the booming market in
Iraqi antiquities. How about an early Sumerian glass-beaded necklace
for only $24? A 2,000-year-old bronze arrowhead for $14? Or an ancient
cuneiform tablet, moulded from Mesopotamian clay, and bearing the
imprint of a barter deal for sheep or wine, for $1.25? They can all be
found within a few seconds on ebay and other websites on the internet,
and there's plenty more on the way.
The sacking of Iraq's National Museum last week may at first have
looked like an act of random vengeance against a convenient emblem of
the state. Why else would a people loot their own history? Especially
a people so closely connected to a past of incomparable richness.
The more the scale of the losses became apparent - at least 170,000
items are missing or destroyed - the less sense it seemed to make. Who
had done it? And what would the plunder be good for in the slums of
Saddam City? Impressing the neighbours?
But even as the world of antiquities reeled from a tragedy that Paul
Zimansky, the eminent American archaeologist, likened to the burning
of the library at Alexandria in classical times, a new and more
sinister picture of what happened in Baghdad was emerging. It now
appears that the looting of the museum was neither spontaneous nor
random. In all probability, it was planned well in advance of the
American-led invasion, and the thieves almost certainly benefited from
inside help.
Interpol and FBI agents who have been brought in to investigate
believe the most valuable pieces were stolen to order, and are already
on their way to Europe, America or Japan. "The vaults where the best
pieces are kept, were opened with keys," says McGuire Gibson, the
president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad.
"Looters coming in off the streets, don't usually have keys, do they?
It appears to have been a deliberate, planned action. My feeling is
that it was organised abroad."
Witnesses have spoken of seeing well-dressed men with walkie-talkies
at the scene, and of artefacts being transported away in orderly
convoys of vans rather than over the heads of the crowd. "We already
have reports of exhibits being offered for sale in Switzerland and
Japan," says Karl-Heinz Kind, Interpol's specialist officer for art
and antiquity trafficking. "Even in a war zone, even with the country
practically sealed off, these things can move with incredible speed."
Last night Jordanian custom officers reported that they had
confiscated some exhibits looted from the Iraqi National Museum, the
first stolen items to be recovered. But the rescued artefacts were
merely 41 photographs and four oil paintings of Saddam Hussein.
To those familiar with the sophisticated international market in
stolen antiquities, the wholesale plundering and rapid dispersal of a
great museum's contents is all too credible. "Archaeological and
cultural organisations had been warning of attacks like these for
months," says Dr Neil Brodie, of the Illicit Antiquities Research
Centre in Cambridge. "But it seems nobody was listening."
Long before the latest war began, millions of pounds worth of Iraq's
ancient treasures were quietly flooding each year into the hands of
Western and Far Eastern collectors. There is a sad irony in this, for
if Saddam Hussein could boast of one good thing in the course of his
30-year dictatorship it was his vigorous early programme to protect
the nation's cultural heritage.
Soon after Saddam's Ba'athists came to power in 1967, harsh laws were
passed to prevent the export of antiquities. "And they worked," says
Richard Zetter, of the University of Pennsylvania, a leading authority
on Mesopotamian history. "Virtually nothing was allowed out, money was
put into museums, and we all applauded and considered it a model for
the region."
But after the first Gulf War in 1991, the weakening of Saddam's grip
on power - at least beyond his Baghdad and Tikrit strongholds - and
the dire economic circumstances in the country began to render the
laws far less effective. Regional museums and important archaeological
sites around the country became easy prey for thieves, whose booty was
spirited out of the country by highly organised gangs, which developed
around the trade. "After the Gulf War," says Mr Zetter, "smuggling
became a profession." In the West, where Iraqi antiquities had a
long-standing cachet, a ready market was waiting.
There was more. Preoccupied by the business of staying in power,
Saddam lost interest in history - except for his own place in it.
Money for museums dried up, many of the archaeological sites were
effectively abandoned, and the scholars and curators at the heart of
the nation's conservation programme gave up the struggle. "Their cars
were commandeered," says Mr Zetter, "their telephones didn't work,
their salaries were frozen. People just drifted away from
antiquities."
To make limited resources stretch further, thousands of antiquities
were moved from small provincial museums to Baghdad in the unfortunate
belief that they would be safer.
In recent years Saddam's own officials appear to have given the stamp
of approval to the lucrative business of selling antiquities abroad.
Last year a large sculptural frieze, originating from a 3,000-year-old
Assyrian palace in north eastern Iraq, weighing more than a tonne and
measuring more than six feet square turned up for sale on the British
market. Art experts believe it unlikely that such a major piece could
have been exported without the acquiescence of someone in authority.
Julian Radcliffe, the chairman of the Art Loss Register, the
organisation which indentified the frieze, says: "There may have been
theft from Iraqi museums by their own government working with the
staff or by criminal elements working with the staff. Curators have
often been worried about keeping the roof on the building of the
museums they work in and desperately need the money to pay for it."
It is hoped that the frieze will end up back in Iraq in due course. In
the meantime, a group of nine archaeologists from the British Museum
are being drafted in to help the salvage and recovery operation at the
Baghdad museum. "We are uniquely placed to do something to help our
Iraqi colleagues," says Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director.
It is clear that a catastrophe has befallen the cultural heritage of
Iraq,"
And the devastation continues. The latest target of the looters is the
museum at Nebuchadnezzar's palace - home of the hanging gardens of
Babylon, one of the wonders of the ancient world. Thieves smashed
their way in through a brick wall, stealing statues, vases, burial
masks and relics of the ancient Babylonian kings.
The galleries were completely stripped, and the floors left littered
with broken glass and debris. Ahmed Mansour, 37, who lives nearby
said: "This is one of the greatest archaeological sites in the world.
I cannot believe that people would want to steal from it. They have no
respect for our ancient culture and they do not care about the future
of Iraq."
Horrified by the scale of the plundering, many Iraqis are blaming the
US troops for not mounting an effective guard on the museums - and
they are not alone. Last week three advisers on cultural affairs to
President George W Bush resigned in protest at the alleged failure of
the US forces to protect Iraq's treasures. "This tragedy was not
prevented due to our nation's inaction," wrote Martin Sullivan, the
chairman of the White House Cultural Property Advisory Committee, in a
resignation letter.
Others are less inclined to blame weary and wary young Marines,
freshly arrived in a conquered capital that they had expected might
lay on a bloodbath.
Behind the looting of the National Museum lies a triumph of street
smartness over military intelligence. The Pentagon may have been
unsure how the battle for Baghdad would play out, but the local gangs,
flush with orders from wealthy overseas collectors, seem to have
anticipated that the city's fall would be swift and made their plans
accordingly.
Certainly Koichiro Matsuura, the director general of Unesco, the
United Nations educational and cultural agency, knows whom to blame.
"It is those bandits who looted their own heritage," he said, at a
meeting of 30 Iraqi and world antiquities experts in Paris. "These
were conditions of confusion and turmoil, and they took full
advantage."
Even as he was speaking, the lost treasures of Iraq - a 5,000-year
trove of learning and beauty - were speeding through the channels of
the underground art market into the hands of foreign collectors. If
the prices seem reasonable it's because there is plenty to go around.
Telegraph Group Limited 2003
Alphonso
Apr 21, 2003, 7:32:10 AM4/21/03
to
Hitler's nazis did the same to european museums...
Who but the americans can get the stuff out of the country?
Who but the americans can get the stuff out of the country?
Ed Bak
Apr 21, 2003, 8:33:26 AM4/21/03
to
> Hitler's nazis did the same to european museums...
> Who but the americans can get the stuff out of the country?
> Who but the americans can get the stuff out of the country?
true ...
Marilyn
Apr 21, 2003, 9:03:40 AM4/21/03
to
Mark Dawkins wrote:
If this kind of potential raid on the museums of Iraq
was this well known, then all the more reason for
the Pentagon to secure them in advance of the
thieves and the mobs.
As for thieves using keys, the videos showed barred gates
pried open with crow bars, smashed doors, and show
cases, evidence of no keys.
MW
Tempest
Apr 21, 2003, 7:10:54 PM4/21/03
to
Alphonso wrote:
>
> Hitler's nazis did the same to european museums...
> Who but the americans can get the stuff out of the country?
Some of the looted treasures are already showing up at U.S. borders.
--
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
Teddy Roosevelt
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