Against "Displacement": A Thought about Hilgert's "Culture Matters"

In "Why Culture Matters," Markus Hilgert asserts that the importance of culture lies in its "fostering  identity through cultural heritage" (as the article's title after the colon puts it), and defines the key problems facing culture as those of the destruction and displacement of heritage. 

Culture, heritage, identity -- these terms are almost intolerably contaminated by received ideas and begged questions, so much so that any effort to say something intelligible about their relationship in a column is bound to fall short. But what I find more troubling in Hilgert's argument is his discussion of displacement. 

The term "displacement" is problematic, because as Hilgert uses it it obscures the distinction between the looting of archaeological sites and the illicit export of artifacts. Archaeological site looting destroys the archaeological context needed to study the past objectively and provide the facts grounding the historical truth about the past; illicit export of artifacts injures national pride (in ways that may, by the way, paradoxically strengthen a sense of aggrieved national identity, with consequences that the last century's history shows can be murderous).

While heritage and identity need to be cared for, we cannot care for them properly without a primary commitment to truth, rather than to heritage or identity per se. And that means that policies should pay at least as much attention to the need to secure archaeological sites from looting as they pay to iconoclasm, conservation and repatriation of displaced artifacts, and heritage development.

Why Christie's Thinks It Can Find Buyers for Antiquities Lacking Pre-1970s Provenance

Nord on Art points out that the e-catalogue for Christie's upcoming London antiquities sale includes a number of items lacking in the pre-1970s provenance that museums belong to the AAMD should require for any objects they acquire, and that makes buyers more vulnerable to potential repatriation claims. 

For Wennerstrom, that Christie's thinks these items can be sold is puzzling:

as the repatriation of antiquities continues to make international news, one wonders why any potential buyer would consider acquiring works without clear datable pre-1970 provenance.

But there is really not much to wonder about here for two reasons. 

First, not all buyers care whether museums are some day going to be willing to accept donations of their artifacts. They are happy enough to acquire for themselves such beautiful objects, and perhaps eventually even display them in private museums; or they anticipate that eventually some solution to the problem of so-called "orphan" antiquities will be found and the very caring foster-parents who purchased these "orphans" will then be permitted to donate them. 

Second, the risk of having a repatriation claim brought is a calculated one for any buyer, and depends on several factors that may reduce it substantially: where the object's country of origin is difficult to establish that risk drops substantially, for instance, and the resources available to the country of origin are likely to be scarce, requiring them to focus on the highest-end objects and on repatriating items owned by countries, museums, or universities where leverage can be exerted in the form of threats to ban archaeological digs or exchanges. 

The continued saleability at auction of the kinds of items noted in the Nord post is only the tip of the iceberg. One can only imagine what goes on in the back rooms of antiquities dealers' shops where presumably the very highest-end provenance-challenged pieces are sold directly to collectors. But the key point here is that heritage protection advocates are deluding themselves if they think that the 1970 rule in itself is making much of a dent in the trade in non-archaeologically-excavated artifacts.

How Can Antiquities Police Function If the Police in General Are Deligitimated?

Hopes that the military takeover of Egypt's government, whatever its other implications, would at least mean the return of police to Egypt's beleaguered archaeological sites, have not panned out. This sobering report in the New York Times explains why: the military, rather than doing the  dirty work of suppressing protest, has delegated that task to the police.  The result?

Another officer, Maj. Haitham Abbas, complained that the entire force had been tarnished by the response to the unrest, giving the example of a colleague who works in a unit that guards tourists:
“They told his son at school: ‘Your father is a murderer. He kills people in the streets,’ ” the officer said. “He probably never even pulled his gun out.”

UNESCO's actions in response to the looting in Egypt

Edouard Planche, program specialist in the Cultural Heritage Protection Treaties Section of UNESCO's Culture Sector,  has kindly agreed to allow me to repost the comment he made on Derek Fincham's Illicit Cultural Property blog, regarding actions that UNESCO is taking in Egypt:

Following the information given by the Egyptian Ministry of State for Antiquities, UNESCO published immediately the data of the stolen objects on its website:http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/illicit-traffic-of-cultural-property/emergency-actions/egypt/warning-looting-of-the-malawi-national-museum/.
At national level, the UNESCO field office in Cairo continues to provide support to the museum staff and the Ministry of State for Antiquities to refine the list of looted objects and translate it into English. As of today, through the efforts of the Egyptian authorities, the police has already succeeded in recuperating 121 objects but 911 objects are still missing.
UNESCO is taking the initiative to circulate the most updated information concerning this looting and to inform its partners in order to ensure maximum vigilance on anticipated attempts to illegally export and sell the objects on the market.
UNESCO works closely with IGOs sucha as INTERPOL, the World Customs Organisation, ICCROM, UNIDROIT as well as with selected NGOs such as, for example, ICOMOS, ICOM, the International Committee of the Blue shield and private partners of the art market.

Turkey's Ministry of Culture has decided that "artifacts which have been brought to museums and have not been claimed by valid owners... can be valued by a specially formed commission and sold." That should make private collectors happy, at least Turkish ones (I do not know off the top of my head what the export rules are in Turkey), but it is, like deaccessioning in general, a loss to the public whose interest in access to antiquities museums ought to be protecting. The public interest could be protected and indeed enhanced if museums adhered to a policy of selling deaccessioned pieces only to other museums where they can be curated and displayed.

The Ministry's response to criticism seems to track this consideration:

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism defended the new measures in a press release which expressed the ministry’s hope that the changes would allow for a better management of artifacts and avoid situations where items are forgotten or lost track of. The aim of the change in law is not to ship off items for cash, but to open new avenues for the exhibition of artifacts which are not being put to use or valued in other institutes, the statement said.

The translation is a little ragged, but if sales are only to other "institutes" rather than to private collectors, it might not be such a bad thing, even if it does do some harm by sending a price signal to looters as well. On the other hand, there is a real possibility that museums might get hooked on the income generated by deaccessioning looted-but-recovered antiquities, and one can imagine a nightmarish situation of corruption developing in which secondary sites are looted to provide a stream of disposable pieces, with the looters being paid off by kickbacks from curators after the pieces sell.

Calling All Coin Collectors: Please Explain Again Why the FIndspots of Coins Don't Matter Much

http://news.yahoo.com/old-coins-force-think-jerusalems-western-wall-121242557.html

Profile of State Department's Archaeologist in Afghanistan

Excellent profile of Laura Tedesco, who as the State Department's archaeologist in Afghanistan is doing even more dangerous duty than her colleagues in Iraq, the only other country, as the article notes, where the State Department has posted an archaeologist. It takes great courage and commitment to put one's body on the line as archaeologists in both countries have done, and they deserve our gratitude for that.

As a matter of policy, it is interesting to compare the approach taken in the two countries. In Iraq, the focus has been on redeveloping Babylon and restoring the Iraq Museum as heritage tourism destinations, with little attention paid to the massive destruction of other sites by looting or encroachment. In Afghanistan, in contrast, the focus has been on one extraordinary recently deiscovered archaeological site, at Mes Aynak, that is certain to be destroyed, even though it could in theory have become a major tourist attraction if it did not sit atop mineable natural resources worth far more than tourism could ever generate. Tedesco is coy about how much is being spent on salvaging what can be saved from Mes Aynak, but admits it runs into the millions. It is worth asking how much might have been saved from being destroyed by antiquities looters in Iraq if the policymakers at the State Department and in the Pentagon had recognized that there was an equivalent need to protect Iraq's threatened archaeological heritage, and not just to exploit the part of it that would generate tourist revenues.

Egypt's archaeological sites and museums will be getting a security upgrade

This sounds like a very good development, not just because better-armed guards, if they are properly trained, will have more deterrent effect, but also because the security plans will "be updated periodically to meet new or unexpected challenges." One hopes that Egypt will settle down and fulfill its promise of establishing a stable democratically-run government, but gaming out the possible scenarios for political breakdown and creating agreed-upon contingency plans now is very prudent. It may be touchy to raise the question of whether the Tourism and Antiquities Police might once again melt away, as they did during the January uprising, but that sort of possibility has to be put on the table, just in case, so that if security does need to be turned over there are clear directions as to how the SCA can fill the security gap at least temporarily.

International Smuggling Ring Operating within US Cracked

Lots of intriguing information in this story, though the outlines mesh with what we know is the modus operandi by which antiquities make their way from countries of origin (here, Egypt) to collectors in faraway exotic places (here, Virginia): move the pieces to a free port like Dubai, from there to Manhattan dealer, either directly from a Dubai dealer -- or a foreign (Jordanian) dealer operating out of the free port -- or run through some other dealership (in this case in Bloomfield, Michigan). The Manhattan dealer -- who thanks to Paul Barford we know operated in midtown, on Second Avenue between 55th and 56th Streets -- then fabricates a false provenance (part of an old family collection, in this case the dealer's own family!) which the collector accepts. What is quite interesting in this particular case is that the collector has also been indicted for allegedly knowing that the provenance story was fiction. How the authorities could prove this is a puzzler but even if it cannot be proven it really does put collectors on notice to be very very careful from hereon in if they want to avoid major legal bills at the very least.

Hawass: No Tourist Police, No Army on Sites

In a very illuminating interview, Zahi Hawass at long last makes clear how little power he wielded, despite his high public profile as head of an agency employing 30,000 responsible for one of Egypt's most important sources of revenue. The military, which had been protecting sites until 10 days ago, has withdrawn, but the tourist police have not filled the security gap, and Hawass now explains that the site guards under his control are unarmed and therefore incapable of protecting sites from gangs of looters:

people come with guns. They stand in front of my security people, who run away, because they are not armed. In the past, Police refused to give them weapons.

Assuming things are as bad as he claims (and there is no reason to think otherwise, since many of the sad facts he adduces here have been independently confirmed already by archaeologists), Hawass is to be commended for resigning under these conditions, and for using his resignation to call attention to the failure of the transitional military government to continue military security on sites. 


What can be done now by those outside Egypt who wish to help that country secure its heritage during this unstable phase in the democratic revolution? The answer can't just be to issue public statements deploring what is happening and calling on the Egyptian authorities to protect sites, as the AIA/AAMD press release does. While necessary, that is unlikely to have much effect on its own. And while these organizations rightly call on their own members to provide expertise supporting Egyptian efforts to identify and reclaim missing objects, curators and archaeologists are not trained in site security. One thing that the AAMD's member museums could do, however, would be to pull together resources -- money and their own best security people -- to at the very least try to hire locals to secure the storehouses and sites connected to archaeological digs that they have been jointly engaged in with the Egyptians. This need not, and probably cannot, involve buying AK-47s for site guards, as was done by some institutions and individuals for a few dig sites in Iraq; but many other steps short of that are doable.


But only the Egyptian military can really handle the security demands. We know that the Egyptian military has longstanding and strong professional connections with the US military, and that archaeologists have participated in joint military trainings in Egypt such as the Bright Star exercise. We also know that the Smithsonian has been developing new and potentially extremely valuable interagency links to the US military, largely as a result of the initiative spearheaded by the Smithsonian's Richard Kurin to bring disaster relief assistance for Haiti's cultural sector after the earthquake. It is these networks of relationships that the archaeological and museum community needs to somehow tap into. 


That means, for starters, a focus on:

1. identifying and work contacts with the Egyptian military to urge them to deploy troops to secure sites.
2. identifying and working contacts within the US military to urge them to contact their Egyptian counterparts to express concern about the security vacuum on archaeological sites.
3. offering material support, not just in the form of archaeological expertise to put humpty dumpty together again, but also in ways that would make it easier for the Egyptians to secure and guard their sites. (Just to be clear: there is almost nothing the US military could do directly to help -- we have no deployable equivalent to the Italian carabinieri, and even if we did have such capability the Egyptian military would never countenance American troops being in a position where they might have to fire on Egyptian citizens. The support here would have to be in the form of financial and logistical support for whatever the Egyptian military says it needs.)

Even in Republican-Dominated Utah, Americans Recognize Artifact-Looting Is Wrong

This poll should come as bad news to the hard-core libertarians in the antiquities-collecting community, but good news to those of us who believe that archaeological sites are a public good. Even in a strongly Republican state, most Americans recognize that those who loot our sites are destroying something valued by us all, that an unpoliced market in antiquities abets this destruction, and that policing means making it clear through prosecution and convictions of looters and dealers in hot pots that their activities are not to be tolerated.

The publicity around this case has undoubtedly sent a signal, and it will be interesting to see whether looting of Native American sites in Utah is reduced substantially or not. On one hand, those who might otherwise have been contemplating heading off into the national park to chisel off a petroglyph may think twice, and public awareness of the importance of preserving archaeological sites is higher now; on the other hand, the publicity in itself has probably also raised awareness about the money that a good pot can bring, so that there are probably a lot more folks to whom the idea of looting will occur. And if, like Arizona and other states in dire fiscal straits, Utah cuts back on the policing of its parks, the good done by these prosecutions may be obviated.

Italian Antiquities Looting Prosecutor: Legal Frameworks Hampering Efforts to Recover Artifacts and Deter Looting

A quite interesting interview with Paolo Giorgio Ferri by Fabio Isman in the online Art Newspaper. Some of the key points, or at least claims, made by the former Italian prosecutor :

• restitutions concern only a tiny fraction of illicitly-dug artifacts that have appeared on the antiquities market
• we are aware of only about 30% of the looting that has occurred
• Italian prosecutors have a database of at least 200,000 objects that have appeared on the black market 
• investigations restricted to recoveries on behalf of a single country don't make sense, since the dealers often handle materials from multiple countries
• tamping down on looting and smuggling of illicit antiquities in Italy has led to organized crime moving to Bulgaria in search of more easily harvested artifacts
• Discrepancies between the legislation in different countries make it difficult to get assistance (Switzerland viewed Medici's crime as a tax crime and therefore not a matter for assistance)
• Italian law is too lenient, both in terms of penalties and in terms of its statute of limitations, which encourages criminals to bank illegally excavated objects for five years
• ancient coins are often of crucial importance for dating an archaeological site or tomb
• UNESCO is considering updated the 1970 Convention to include requirements for states to set up specialized antiquities crime teams, but unless international law is also amended to make it possible for these national teams to coordinate efforts, crimes will go unreported by one country to another, and efforts to stop crime in one country will simply shift it elsewhere.

Ferri doesn't suggest many solutions, though he does say Italy would be better served if it adopted something like Iraq's legislation which makes it a serious crime to not turn over to police objects excavated after 1995. While such legislation didn't do much to stem the looting of Iraq's sites, because there have been no antiquities police deployed to enforce it, similar laws under Saddam worked well (at least until the sanctions and no-fly zones eroded enforcement capabilities. Italian carabinieri armed with such a law would certainly be able to do even more than they are doing now, which is already considerable.

On Bernard Frischer's Proposal for Museum-Sponsored Digs With Loan-Partage

Bernard Frischer offers a vision of a world in which museums partnered with countries of origin to excavate sites:

The countries of origin would own anything that was excavated there and keep most of the finds on display in local partnering museums. But the museum that sponsored the dig would be allowed to borrow a percentage of the finds and exhibit them in America. Eventually, all the finds from a site would be exchanged on a rotating basis between the country of origin and the museum, which would pay the expenses and insurance.

The basic framework seems entirely reasonable, if only countries of origin could get over the very high political hump of persuading their own citizens that patrimony is not being lost but only lent. Academically-affiliated archaeologists have found it impossible to make this sort of arrangement (so far as I am aware), but they came to the table with far less money in their pockets than museums are likely to be able to muster, so perhaps a deal could be arranged that would allow the antiquities ministries to dicker.

That money, though, has to come ultimately from the antiquities collectors who support museums, and that raises a sticky problem. Would museums really be able to raise the money needed for excavations (and for the very unglamorous archiving, storage, and analysis of non-museum-worthy materials) without giving these collectors something special in return? Frischer seems to believe the answer is no, since he offers the following neat idea (in the Oliver North sense):

Even individual collectors could invest and participate in the exchanges, if they were trained to care for the finds on temporary loan to them. Someday, investors or their heirs could sell these shares at auctions and galleries, just like works of art.

This is a bad idea, for several reasons. First, the idea of antiquities being turned over, even if only for a time, to wealthy foreign individuals would be far more toxic politically than loaning pieces to museums -- especially if, as is almost sure to be the case, these same individuals are notorious for collecting illicitly excavated antiquities. (And it would not just be citizens in countries of origin who would be appalled -- Americans might be as well. We do not see the Met raising money by loaning out pieces from its permanent collection, for good reason.) Second, this sort of quid pro quo would probably mean that collectors who might have supported the museum's excavations as a matter of public-spiritedness will stop donating. Why donate when one can invest?

Moreover, how would museums vouch for the training of individual collectors or for the safeguarding of materials in private hands, especially if the loan rights are to be then sold or auctioned off to other individuals? Can you imagine the insurance that would be required to cover, say, a one-year loan to a private collector, or the furor that would ensue if the piece were somehow damaged or stolen while out on the mantelpiece in a Park Avenue penthouse? Neither of these practical objections is insuperable -- museums might require collectors not just to be trained but to employ museum curators, for example, and collectors might be found rich enough or able to put up comparable artifacts as collateral to cover the insurance costs -- but the problems are real.

There is also a concern about whether excavations driven by museums will be conducted with an eye to finding the most spectacular artifacts rather than the more humble but likely more archaeologically-significant materials. Curators working for collecting institutions are certain to be judged on whether they bring back the trophy, not whether they broaden our knowledge of ancient trade routes or enable us to tell when the ancients first began to conceive of the soul as surviving the death of the body.

Last but not least, there is nothing wrong with museums getting back into sponsoring excavations, but the idea that this would "put looters and smugglers out of business" is simply ludicrous. Yes, demand at the top end would be reduced, and yes, this would make smuggling less lucrative, but we are talking about a worldwide demand, and many high-end collectors, especially in other countries, are not going to participate in these arrangements. Even libertarians recognize that markets cannot completely regulate themselves, that property must be secured, and that police are necessary to do this. Until those who love the individual artifact come up with a policy that helps pay for antiquities police as well as reducing demand, we should remain skeptical.

Bush's ghostwriters on the looting of the Iraq National Museum

George W. Bush's utterly mendacious ghostwritten memoir contains only one mention of the looting of the Iraq National Museum. It comes in the context of a rare admission that "there was one important contingency for which we had not adequately prepared":

     In the weeks after liberation, Baghdad descended into a state of lawlessness. I was appalled to see looters carrying precious artifacts out of Iraq's national museum and to read reports of kidnapping, murder, and rape. Part of the explanation was that Saddam had released tens of thousands of criminals shortly before the war. But the problem was deeper than that. Saddam had warped the psychology of Iraqis in a way we didn't fully understand. The suspicion and fear that he had cultivated for decades were rising to the surface.

    "What the hell is happening?" I asked during an NSC meeting in late April. "Why isn't anybody stopping these looters?"

    The short answer was that there was a manpower shortage in Baghdad. The Iraqi police force had collapsed when the regime fell. The Iraqi army had melted away. Because of Turkey's decision, many of the American troops who liberated Baghdad had been required to continue north to free the rest of the country. The damage done in those early days created problems that would linger for years. The Iraqis were looking for someone to protect them. By failing to secure Baghdad, we missed our best chance to show that we could.

True enough. But the excuse that "Saddam had warped the psychology of Iraqis in a way we didn't fully understand", cultivating "suspicion and fear" that were now "rising to the surface," reflects the stupidity and intellectual laziness that characterized Bush and his gang.  As I and many others have made abundantly clear, there was massive evidence that Iraqis were willing and able to loot their country's cultural institutions if given the opportunity: the many regional museums looted within 24 hours of the establishment of no-fly zones back in the 1990s should have made that clear enough that the national museum would be targeted. McGuire Gibson, the Archaeological Institute of America, and many others from the archaeological community warned explicitly that looting was almost certain to occur (Gibson in a face-to-face meeting with Ryan Crocker in late January). And, as we know now thanks to Elizabeth Stone's forensic examination of time-series satellite imagery, the redeployment of Iraqi troops away from the site areas in January 2003, in preparation for the impending invasion, unleashed a wave of looting on Iraq's sites even before the US arrived.
     These looters were not driven by a warped psychology of suspicion and fear, but by a much simpler psychological mechanism that Bush and other freemarketers certainly could have understood: the profit motive. Antiquities are valuable commodities. It doesn't take a genius to imagine that a country reduced to anarchy will resemble the purest of free markets. But it is easier to blame Saddam instead.
    In any case, once Bush saw that the museum had been looted (how, it is hard to say, since to my knowledge there is no footage showing looters carrying objects out of the museum), he should have immediately asked, "What the hell is happening?" Yet he waited until late April to pose this question (assuming that the memoir didn't just make up this remark). That speaks volumes about the fecklessness of our worst President.

British Museum Raising $ for New Museum in Basra, Iraq

While the image of the Brits setting up a museum in Iraq to display artifacts removed from Iraq may leave one a bit queasy at the neo-colonialist overtones, this is actually a great idea worth emulating as a form of cultural diplomacy in other countries. One hopes that State Department officials are in discussions with the Met, the Art Institute, and other universal museums with holdings that could and should make visits to their countries of origin.

Kudoes to the indefatigable John Curtis and especially to Major General Barney White-Spunner for imagining and pushing this, and to the British Museum for backing the effort to raise funds.

What the Italians in the Marion True Case Should Have Been Seeking from Museums

Hugh Eakin interviewed Marion True last month in the New Yorker, clearly on her side in the "ordeal", noting that the defense never made its case (it never presented its case, true enough, but surely there was a case to be made based on the massive amount of circumstantial evidence offered in Watson and Tedeschini's Medici Conspiracy).

True does deserve some sympathy as a pawn in a bigger game, but the stakes of that game are not made clear in the article. A comment by "Anderson" on Eakin's interview offers what is probably the consensus view of the case's relationship to the broader issues it is enmeshed with, those of the black market trade in looted -- not merely illicit -- antiquities and the impact museums have and could have on that market:

I have been following this case and what a black joke it all is. The international traffic in pillaged art is a huge and hugely depressing problem for anybody with an ounce of humanity and love of art, history and culture. But. It has to be said that Italy is a train wreck of a country, politically (I love Italy in every other way), with a president that has spent the last decade or so urinating on the rule of law there, where the garbage can't even be collected reliably, and where they cannot even begin to stop organized crime from the ongoing looting of their cultural heritage, very often even the heritage in their museums, much less what is buried in the ground in Puglia or Sicily or wherever. Much of the rest of the world with a significant archaeological history is in much worse shape. So the Italians prosecute a woman, not even the museum she worked for, to send a message to museums, which aren't even a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg of the problem, and have actually been really trying to help as best they can over the last couple of decades, as one would expect, dedicated as they are to the love of history, art and culture. I bet there are a lot of lawyers out there who are really happy though.

No doubt Italy has its problems, including finding adequate resources to protect its vast holdings, as we see from the collapse of the gladiatorial building in Pompeii and the plastering of advertisements on palazzi in Venice. And no doubt museums -- even museums as wealthy as the Getty -- buy only a tiny fraction of what is looted. But it would be wrong to conclude that what museums do makes no difference or that museums have been helping as best they can. Museums have a vested interest in bringing artifacts that are out of the ground into their collections, not in protecting those not yet excavated. Adopting a clean-hands policy is the least, not the best, museums could do. The best would be to forcefully urge their collector-donor-board members to support measures to clean up the antiquities trade (by legal changes making it much more difficult to traffic inadequately provenanced antiquities, reversing the burden of proof, etc.), and to urge those same wealthy collectors to voluntary donate and/or ask the government to impose taxes on antiquities sales to raise money that would be dedicate to the hiring of more site guards, satellite monitoring, or any one of dozens of ways in which looting of sites could be reduced. The shame of this prosecution is that it did not send that message to museums.

Archaeology vs. Development in Afghanistan: Bamiyan, Capitalist-Style

A major and largely unexcavated Buddhist site in Afghanistan, Mes Aynak, whose importance is comparable to that of Bamiyan, is being frantically studied by archaeologists to see what can be salvaged before the site is destroyed by a gigantic copper-mining operation. The Chinese government-run mining group is investing $3.5 billion, with the Afghan government standing to reap $1.2 billion per year, according to this article.  (That's in addition, one supposes, to the $880 million before production reported by the Wall Street Journal). Either way, it is big money. Only 18 archaeologists -- 16 Afghans and 2 Frenchmen -- are working the one square mile site with a few dozen laborers, an area that would normally need 100 laborers and several dozen archaeologists. The hoped-for budget for this minimal team? Only $10 million, of which the Afghan government has allotted $2 million. The US has promised funding but not said how much.

So to summarize: a major site is going to be destroyed after a totally inadequate salvage archaeological project, because the $20-30 million needed to do the job properly is not even going to be asked for, even though the profits following the site's destruction are going to be billions upon billions. The Afghan government should be going back to the Chinese and demanding that the costs of a fullbore salvage operation be covered, and the US government should be working the problem. Are we? Or does the prospect of destroying the equivalent of Bamiyam not matter when development rather than fanaticism is the motivation?

More from Wikileaks on Looted Antiquities Recovered in Operations Against Insurgents

Below are a few more instances I've been able to cull from WarLogs describing antiquities being found together with weapons. To put these incidents in some perspective, it should be noted that there are 1020 documents in the WarLogs that mention smuggling (and many of these are duplicate reports, so the actual number of anti-smuggling operations is probably closer to 500); that is out of a total of almost 392,000 total reports posted to WarLogs.  

The total number of reports in which antiquities are reported found together with weapons, then, is very low, in the neighborhood of 1-2% (only 6 or so out of something like 500 smuggling incidents).  It is possible that antiquities might have been found but not reported because they were not considered important enough to mention, but there is no way to know this. 

It is also worth noting that the WarLogs do not contain all reports made during the war; missing are reports of smuggling of any kind before 1/1/2004. The major looting shown by Elizabeth Stone to have occurred in 2003 would therefore not register at all on WarLogs if those antiquities were being smuggled out before 2004. 

The incidents that we do have, while few in number, are enough to make clear that while most smugglers did not smuggle antiquities along with RPGs, rockets, body armor, and mortars, some did. 

 

In An Nasiriyah (south part) started a search op. In order to contrast the illegal detention of weapons and %%% carried out by MSU/Military Police joint with local police. The followings (in good conditions) have

2004-10-28 23:40:00

Expand acronyms:  Take care; definitions may be wrong.

In An Nasiriyah (south part) started a search op. In order to contrast the illegal detention of weapons and %%% carried out by MSU/Military Police joint with local police. The followings (in good conditions) have been impounded by local police: 3 2x automatic rifle; 3 4x %%%; 3 4x air rifles; 3 3x %%% 1x ak %%% rifles; 3 1x %%% rifle; 3 2x pattern rifles; 3 1x stern rifle; 3 1x gun; 3 5x hand grenades; 320x electric detonators; 3 10x gun magazine; 3 33x ak %%% magazines; 3 2x %%% rocket for rpg; 3Various calibre %%%. An IZ has also been arrested by local police for illegal detention of weapons and %%%. The INFO-OPS, which started yesterday, carried out by Task force MSU joint with provincial archaeological local guard in , , %%% and %%% (located north west of ( %%%)) ended this morning. The op. Aim was to oppose and repress the illegal trade of archaeological stolen finds in %%% province. As result of the op. several vases, statues and tools dated %%% bc. All finds were given to archaeological authority of %%%.

THREAT WARNING: POSS Attack ON (: %%% DEC %%%)

2005-12-28 00:22:00

Expand acronyms:  Take care; definitions may be wrong.

%%%. AS OF LATE %%%, AN UNIDENTIFIED GROUP REPORTEDLY WAS PLANNING AN ATTACKUSING EIGHT %%% ROCKETS ON THE %%% NEAR AN NASIRIYAH FOR . (%%% COMMENT: THE EXACT TIMING AND ATTACK PLAN DETAILS WERE NOT KNOWN.) THE EIGHT %%% ROCKETSWERE PURCHASED BY (()) (()) %%% STORED ON '%%% FARM. '%%% FARM WAS LOCATED IN %%% VILLAGE, NEAR THE . %%% ALLEGEDLY WAS AFFILIATED WITH %%%/ANTIQUITIES IN AN NASIRIYAH. (()) (%%%), A FORMER MILITARY OFFICER TRAINED IN ARTILLERY, %%% WOULD HANDLE LAUNCHING THE ROCKETS FROM %%% VILLAGE.



%%%. THE ALLEGED PLAN FURTHER SPECIFIED THAT WITHIN TWO TO THREE HOURS AFTER ATTACKING THE %%%, THE OFFICE OF THE MARTYR %%% (OMS) OFFICE IN AN NASIRIYAH WOULD BE ATTACKED BY THE SAME GROUP. THE GROUP REPORTEDLY HOPED TO MAKE ITAPPEAR THE %%% AT %%% HAD RETALIATED AGAINST THE OMS IN AN EFFORT TO GAIN %%%'A SYMPATHY FOR '%%% GROUP.

RAID BY /%%% IA IN BAGHDAD(ZONE ): %%% DET, %%% INJ/DAMAGE

2005-06-03 11:14:00

Expand acronyms:  Take care; definitions may be wrong.

AT 1714D, /%%% IA CONDUCTED A RAID TO KILL OR DETAIN AIF %%%. RESULTS OF RAID: 5X DETAINEES, STOLEN %%% DEVICES, MONEY MAKING MACHINES, AND 31X ARTIFACTSRECOVERED. ARTIFACTS WERE STOLEN FROM THE BAGHDAD MUSEUM. NO Coalition ForcesINJ/DAM

(FRIENDLY ACTION) DETAIN Report - : %%% UE DET

2009-07-08 19:00:00

Expand acronyms:  Take care; definitions may be wrong.

***%%% NATION REPORT***
****CONFIRMED BY Coalition Forces*****
*****LATE REPORT*****
*EXCEPTIONAL INFORMATION*

MND-%%% EVENT (%%%)

UNIT: /%%% ABN

WHO: - %%%

WHAT: CACHE

WHEN: %%%

WHERE:

: %%%

CLOSEST ISF/SoI Check Point(%%%):
Check Point NUMBER:
UNIT:
GRID LOCATION:
DISTANCE AND DIRECTION:

TIMELINE:
: -%%% CONDUCTED A UNILATERAL %%% DRIVEN RAID TO CAPTURE -%%%. SUSPECT WAS DETAINED WITH 6X GUARDIAN DEVICES IN HIS HOME AND 2X ARTIFACTS. INFORMATION WASGATHERED THROUGH THE FLEXIBLE MAINTENANCE WORKER PROGRAM IN %%%. HHC/-%%% AND -- %%% REFINED THE INFORMATION FROM THE %%% AND PASSED TO HIGHER HQ FOR ABrigade LEVEL OPERATION. %%% RECEIVED PERMISSION TO ENTER %%% CITY FROM MAJOR GENERAL , %%% ISF PARTNERSHIP AND COORDINATION. THE SYSTEMS WERE IN Coalition ForcesHANDS BY %%%.


CACHE ROLL-UP:
%%% X ENEMY DETAINED
2X GUARDIAN SYSTEMS
2X ARTIFACTS
1X PISTOL
1X BODY ARMOR VEST

GUARDIAN TRANSMITTER SERIAL NUMBERS:

%%% BAND:
%%% BAND:
%%% BAND:
%%% BAND:
%%% BAND:
%%% BAND: %%%


Explosive Ordnance Disposal [bomb defuser] ASSESSMENT: %%%/A


S2 ASSESSMENT:
%%% AN Facility protection service GUARD AT BIAP WHO HAS PRIOR REPORTING OF BEING CORRUPT AND A MEMBER OF %%%. WE BELIEVE %%% GUARDIAN SYSTEMS FROM ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL WHO WAS GOING TO USE %%% THE DEVICES TO SOMEONE IN %%%. FURTHER TQ AND INTERROGATION OF %%% THE OTHER MEMBERS INVOLVED WITH THE THEFT OF THIS SENSITIVE EQUIPMENT.

SUMMARY:
%%% X CACHE
%%% X ARREST
%%% X INJ
%%% X DMG


//CLOSED// %%%

(FRIENDLY ACTION) RAID Report %%% AD DIN OPS/ : %%% UE DET

2008-07-03 15:00:00

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THE ISF RAIDED THE RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX IN %%% AREA, '%%% HOUSE WAS RAIDED AND THEY FOUND SOME ANTIQUES, THEY ALSO CAPTURED THE FOLLOWING :




%%%
AND THE ALSO SEIZED ONE MILLION ID AND .%%%

(FRIENDLY ACTION) CACHE FOUND/CLEARED Report KARBALA OPS/ : %%% INJ/DAM

2008-11-02 04:45:00

Expand acronyms:  Take care; definitions may be wrong.

THE SECURITY FROM THE ESTABLISHMENTS PROTECTION AND THE ANTIQUITIES PROTECTION FOUND AND CLEARED:
- 16X 60MM MORTAR ROUNDS
- 15X CONTAINERS OF %%%.5MM ROUNDS FOR MACHINE GUN
- 1X 122MM %%% ROUND
- 3X %%% PROPELLING CHARGES
- 1X 120MM MORTAR ROUND