Looting Antiquities and Funding Terrorism

This is a story that I've wanted to post for some time and is near and dear to me. I don't know if it's something only people in the "art world" care about, but it's something that everyone should maybe be aware of. This deals with the theft of culture. Recently some major museums have been hit hard by countries seeking their precious works back. Most notably is the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who is being sued by the Italian government over some very important works they say were stolen and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California who's main antiquities curator is now on trial in Rome on charges of knowingly purchasing stolen objects from Italy and Greece.

When a artifact is taken from the ground without proper archaeological surveillance, the object becomes void of almost any meaning. Sure, one can still appreciate it's inherent beauty or intrinsic value but its context is gone. Where was it found? What was it used for? What time period is it from? Is it authentic? These are questions that can be answered when the work's location is documented. So, when a major museum or rich collector purchases stolen works of art (let's face it, almost all undocumented works are stolen and they know it), they are knowingly feeding into this illicit trade.

This op-ed piece in the NY Times, by Manhattan assistant district attorney, does a great job of breaking down the situation:

...Although most countries recognize the importance of preserving the world's cultural heritage, none have devoted sufficient resources to tracking down stolen artifacts... As for the art community, some feel that, while technically illegal, the market in purloined antiquities is benign- victimless - as long as it brings the art to those who can properly appreciate it (namely, themselves)...

But recently, things have become even more troubling - when tracking down terrorists, we now find antiquities. In a series of raids in June in northwest Iraq, for instance, marines arrested five terrorists in underground bunkers filled with automatic weapons, ammunition stockpiles, black uniforms, ski masks, night-vision goggles ... and 30 vases, cylinder seals and statuettes that had been stolen from the Iraq Museum...

Looting has always been a cottage industry in Iraq, whose rich ancient history includes the invention of pottery and the wheel. Yet Iraq's State Board of Antiquities has only 2,600 guards, half of them newly trained, for more than 10,000 archaeological sites. Iraq, then, has approximately one guard for every four sites, some of which - like the ruins of Babylon - need at least two dozen guards to be protected. And these guards lack necessary radios, vehicles and body armor... As a result, the desert night is filled with the roar of bulldozers ripping into mounds that were once thriving cities. This wholesale ransacking destroys not just the antiquities themselves, but context as well.

For it is expert recording of the placement of objects in levels and clusters that provides the most meaningful historical information. All this is lost, even if we later recover the object...

This is typical of the low priority given to investigative efforts worldwide. Interpol can afford to assign only two officers to its Antiquities Tracking Task Force - and both are responsible for other countries as well. Scotland Yard's art and antiquities squad has four officers. The F.B.I.'s Rapid Deployment National Art Crime Team has just eight people...

Progress in stopping the illegal trade also depends on increasing public awareness of the importance of cultural property and the magnitude of the current crisis. We must create a climate of universal condemnation, rather than sophisticated indulgence, for trafficking in undocumented antiquities...

Antiquities trafficking will never merit the same attention or resources as terrorism, drugs, human trafficking or violent crime, but it deserves to be on the same list...