Meth-using pothead possible child molesting tomb robber knows enough to note findspot and stratum

Inappropriate letter to a 14-year-old leads to smell of pot leads to spotting bags of pot in van leads to finding meth pipe in van leads to finding Native American artifacts. And yet the guy was smart enough to have tagged some of the cards with detailed info on findspot and stratum!

The items included pieces of obsidian, a glass-like volcanic rock, shaped into points and clay pottery bowls. Some had index cards attached with detailed information on where they were found, when and even the depth of the soil from where they were retrieved, said public information officer Lt. Steve Brooks of Lake County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO).
Dino Beltran, of the Koi Nation of Northern California, said thieves often take records of what they find to enhance the value of the artifacts. They do their research, looking through resource books and price guides to later sell the items online, at pawn shops or thrift stores.
“There’s a large black market for these items,” he said.
Originally, law enforcement officers had responded to a report of an inappropriate letter to a 14-year-old, allegedly written by Brian Gene Smith. The 41-year-old suspect was standing behind his white van with the double doors open behind a business in the 16000 block of Main Street in Lower Lake when the deputy contacted him just before noon.
According to police reports, the deputy noticed that Smith was exhibiting the signs and symptoms of being under the influence. As he neared the van, the deputy smelled the scent of marijuana emitting from it and saw a bag with pot when he looked inside.
Upon searching the van, he found drug paraphernalia in the form of a glass pipe stained with a white residue consistent with methamphetamine in the stem and a brown substance in the bowl, Brooks stated.
The deputy continued to search the van when he discovered the Native American artifacts, Brooks said. He also found a flash drive which allegedly contained images of Smith holding a rifle and another unidentified man holding obsidian points.

The Bible Museum/Israel Antiquities Authorities Deal: Four Lessons

The US Bible Museum, about to open in Washington DC, has struck a deal with the Israel Antiquities Authority for a multi-year agreement to display artifacts, possibly even including artifacts that haven't yet been excavated by the Authority. Complete details haven't been released, but we do know that the deal includes both a permanent exhibition and rotating special exhibits. The IAA already has a long-term loan arrangement with the Met for about 30 objects, but the Bible Museum deal calls for hundreds or even thousands. In exchange, it would seem that the IAA gets, in addition to the opportunity to share some of its archaeological heritage with the world, Bible Museum sponsorship of a new archaeological dig.

Readers of this blog likely already are aware of the problematic nature of the Bible Museum's interpretative focus and, more troubling still, of the likelihood, given the speed with which it has been  built, that the museum's collection includes many artifacts of dubious provenance. But these ethical issues aside, this long-term loan agreement holds several important lessons for those interested in preventing the future looting of archaeological sites.

First, there is a huge and growing demand for antiquities on the part of private museums being established at a record pace by wealthy collectors. This demand constitutes a huge opportunity to tap resources desperately needed by archaeological authorities in economically-stressed countries.

Second, the way to tap those resources is via long-term loans that do not carry the stigma of selling off heritage.

Third, the quid pro quo should recognize that securing archaeological sites from destruction is the highest priority. In this instance, that was not the case. Instead, the quid pro quo was (at least in part) investment in an archaeological dig. This is a good in itself, and will no doubt protect the one site being dug. But digs are not the most efficient way to protect sites from looters. Any deal should involving digs should also require the partnering museum/collector to give or do something to help protect sites or fight the illicit market. There are many possible forms that assistance could take, as readers of this blog know. The important thing is to establish the principle that caring for the world's heritage requires not just displaying it and digging it up but also protecting it in the ground.

Fourth, any agreements should also include a codicil in which the museum partner agrees to follow strict rules going forward regarding acquisition of unprovenanced artifacts (including a pledge to require any artifacts proffered to the museum to be photographed, their owner identified, and the information shared with law enforcement).  Museums will surely balk at this, but an attractive enough loan arrangement should assuage their anxiety. And since many collectors establishing private museums are currently fueling looting by buying unprovenanced materials, getting them out of the illicit antiquities market should do much to ruin that market.

Technological innovation to detect illegal logging -- why not something similar for archaeological sites?

A physicist, engineer, and inventor, has come up with an ingenious new method of detecting illegal logging activity in the Amazon in real time using old cell phones. There are obviously some differences between archaeological sites and trees that make it impractical to simply do the exact same thing: for one thing, chain saws are a lot louder. And in war-torn areas it might be impossible (ISIS will kill you if they find you carrying a GPS-equipped phone, for instance).  But in general this is the sort of technological innovation that I have been argued for quite some time should be sought after in order to supplement/complement efforts to police archaeological sites. Establishing a prize for the development of some such monitoring technology would incentivize the search. There are plenty of possible funders of such a prize, ranging from wealthy collectors such as Shelby White, to dealers such as James Ede, to the owners of tourism agencies, to well-funded archaeological institutions such as the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. 

UNSCR 2199 (2015): How Useful is it?

Given the continued references to UNSCR 2199 as a strong international response to the cultural heritage bit of the disaster now unfolding in Syria and Iraq, it is worth noting that the resolution contains only three action items regarding heritage, and that the resolution's only concrete action is the following:

17. Reaffirms its decision in paragraph 7 of resolution 1483 (2003) and decides that all Member States shall take appropriate steps to prevent the trade in Iraqi and Syrian cultural property and other items of archaeological, historical, cultural, rare scientific, and religious importance illegally removed from Iraq since 6 August 1990 and from Syria since 15 March 2011, including by prohibiting cross-border trade in such items, thereby allowing for their eventual safe return to the Iraqi and Syrian people and calls upon the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Interpol, and other international organizations, as appropriate, to assist in the implementation of this paragraph.

In other words, nothing specific beyond what has already been affirmed. What the "appropriate steps" are is left to the imagination. Contrast the very specific steps described in the fifteen action items dealing with the oil trade, and the weakness of this resolution with regard to the trade in archaeological material becomes even clearer. 

I wrote a book about the failures of policy that led to the looting of the Iraq Museum and of Iraq's archaeological sites following the invasion of Iraq. The advent of ISIL poses a much more difficult problem, to be sure, than the American invasion did. And UNESCO, Interpol and other international organizations are doing their best to respond to the call with the very limited means at their disposal. But the lack of more robust policy measures in UNSCR 2199 is a failure that needs to be studied and learned from.

ISIL issuing official licenses authorizing organized looting of sites

More evidence, as if it were needed, that ISIL is governing the industrialized looting of archaeological sites in its territory.

 

It's the dealers' and collectors' dream come true: a government authorizing the excavation for export of antiquiities! Is this what John Merryman had in mind when he appealed for a licit international trade?

By last summer, various "antiquities ministries" had been established across their strongholds. They have since been drawn together to form part of a "Ministry for Precious Resources", according to Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, who has helped to gather an archive of Isil's operational documents.

The Telegraph has obtained Isil-stamped licences, issued by the "antiquities ministries" in the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Deir Ezzor, giving permission to excavate archaeological materials, apparently in return for money.

 

 

The Obama Administration: MIA on the Destruction of Syrian and Iraqi Heritage

On WBEZ's Worldview, Mac Gibson and Patty Gerstenblith try to remain diplomatic, but make clear that the Obama administration is seriously delinquent in failing to have responded to the surge of antiquities looting in Syria and Iraq over the past years, in particular failing to issue an executive order banning imports of Syrian materials. 

One possible reason for turning a blind eye to looting before the rise of ISIS may be because the money made selling looted antiquities would have gone predominantly -- though we know not exclusively -- to anti-Assad rebel groups and suffering civilian populations. The administration may well have thought of the illicit antiquities trade as all in all a good thing in this situation, the loss of archaeological context and destruction of heritage a small price worth paying. In other words, the failure to ban imports might well indicate a covert policy of benign (sic) neglect.

But it's been months and months since the first video of ISIL destroying artifacts made it impossible to ignore the connection between antiquities looting and support for an organization we are purportedly trying to destroy. Lawmakers are introducing legislation; the general in charge of the US's new air war over Iraq and Syria is questioned about what the US plans to do about ISIL's archaeological depredations. This week we learn that an ISIL leader killed by us turned out to have had a cache of looted antiquities in his house. Yet there is still not a peep out of the White House, notwithstanding John Kerry's big talk at the Metropolitan Museum last fall.

So why the continued delay in imposing sanctions -- or in targeting bulldozers heading out to remote archaeological sites, or in putting pressure on transit countries to beef up border controls, or in supporting a bill to establish a coordinator capable of banging heads and getting the intelligence agencies to work together with the FBI to take down the smuggling networks supporting the trade that supports ISIL?

Attention must be paid.

Sotheby's contributed $75K to support Syrian heritage protection efforts

An interesting development on the heritage protection funding side mentioned in passing in an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

The Center is a partner in the Safeguarding the Heritage of Syria and Iraq project, or SHOSI, which brings together the Smithsonian Institution, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Day After Association, a Syrian-led civil society group, to support the professional community on the ground in Iraq and Syria. (Sotheby’s recently gave $75,000 to the Smithsonian in support of the project.)

I am not aware -- maybe others are -- of any similar contributions having been made by auction houses or dealers towards projects aimed at assisting the protection and securing of antiquities. It would be great to see this kind of giving replicated by the other auction houses and by antiquities dealers. Better still would be a concerted commitment by the players in the trade to make annual contributions to some non-profit entity -- perhaps the Smithsonian, perhaps an NGO -- that would distribute the funding in a timely way (for instance, for the kinds of emergency needs identified by Brian Daniels in the same article). Imagine the goodwill the trade might garner if the major dealers and auction houses -- and heck, why not also major collectors -- signed on to contribute 10% of their annual revenue from antiquities sales to such a fund. (Of course, 10% would be a lot more than $75,000 -- in 2014, two statues alone sold for a total of £25 million.)

Taking such a step would not only give Sotheby's, Christie's, and responsible dealers such as James Ede a p.r. boost that might well lead to a thaw in relations with hostile "source" countries and heritage protection advocates, it might also forestall what is surely coming down the pipes eventually: the imposition of regulations -- including transparency requirements and a tax -- on the market. I myself would much prefer to see the trade regulated de jure, but voluntary self-regulation of the kind I am suggesting is a not-unhelpful second-best solution.

Killed ISIS leader had a trove of antiquities in his compound

 USA Today reports:

One of the few bright spots for the coalition was the successful raid last Saturday on the compound in eastern Syria where a top ISIL operative, Abu Sayyaf, was located. U.S. special operations troops killed Sayyaf, captured his wife and freed a slave the couple had been holding.

Also seized at Sayyaf's compound, USA TODAY has learned, was a trove of antiquities, including ancient coins and a bible. ISIL fighters apparently had plundered the priceless relics during their sweep through Iraq and Syria that began last summer. It appears ISIL planned to sell them on the black market to fund its operations rather than destroy them, the first official said.

It would be extremely helpful to know more about what specific antiquities were found, but this information alone should do much to allay the anxieties of those among us who have worried that exaggerated figures for how much ISIS is making from selling antiquities may destroy our credibility on Capitol Hill or with the Pentagon, making it difficult to get policymakers to take seriously calls to focus resources on protecting sites and on taking down the international antiquities smuggling networks. We don't need to get into the impossible-to-prove numbers game at all. It should be enough to simply point out that leaders of ISIS are themselves involved personally in the gathering and smuggling of illicit antiquities. That should be dispositive. If it isn't it at least will make clear that resistance to addressing the problem has nothing to do with the inability to provide reliable figures of the black market trade in antiquities.

"Is it time to rethink our ideas about preserving world heritage?"

The Financial Times asks the right question, and offers several useful answers.

A couple of caveats:

High-resolution recordings of soon-to-be-pulverized monuments may well be the best one can do in the absence of military action to secure sites or to deter movement of looters and iconoclasts onto sites. It should be clear, however, that what we lose when we are left with mere records rather than the things themselves is not just the materiality of the things but the knowledge that materiality may hold. A hi-res photograph captures only the visible and only certain aspects of the visible. It is much better than nothing but not a perfect substitute, regardless of whether one values authenticity. Craftspeople already know well how to make fakes that can fool even some experts -- one archaeologist has suggested that something like a quarter of the Meso-American artifacts in museums are probably fakes. But that's not a cheering thought.

Preservation, new or otherwise, of already-excavated monuments and artifacts from iconoclasm or other war-related destruction is a different problem from that of preserving (the context of) not-yet-excavated artifacts from looters. The article notes that what we need to do is to "stall the economic benefits of looting", and suggests that looting can be reduced by better policing of the international antiquities market. That is absolutely correct. The question, however, is how policing can be improved. ICOM's online guide to the types of artifacts that emerge points to one answer: more information. Police need more information, and not just to be able to seize or refuse import of banned items (which ICOM's guide can in some cases assist in), but to go after the smuggling networks by tracking the chain of ownership of seized antiquities. As things stand, dealers and auction houses buy and sell antiquities without disclosure requirements. That has to change. There should be transparency regulations requiring any sale of antiquities over a certain threshold price to be reported with the name and address of the buyer and seller along with photos and other identifying information. (The newly released app from ARCH shows how such reporting might be done in a very streamlined way.)

But even with such information, policing is going to be ineffective absent the funding resources needed to pay for site guards, customs officials, antiquities policing units, and local investigations to do the job of monitoring and going after the criminals. And despite professed new interest in cracking down noted in the article, it is very unlikely that governments in general are going to devote scarce resources to this problem. As the article also notes, the opposite is the case: heritage protection is being outsourced. And foundations and NGOs are unlikely to pick up the slack, especially given that policing, unlike restoration, is a permanent task. Some suggest that looters could be deterred by moral suasion from local religious or traditional authorities, and that undoubtedly must play a role; we know for instance that Muqtada al Sadr was able to turn looting on and off by issuing fatwas. But there are too many sites and not enough moral suasion for this to be the only solution. Another suggestion, being pursued with some success by the Sustainable Preservation Initiative, is that locals will guard their own stuff if they have an economic incentive for protecting it as a revenue-generating tourist attraction -- but while that may protect already-excavated individual sites it won't preclude those locals from going off to dig the unexcavated ones. What's needed is a sustainable revenue stream to pay for more and better policing of unexcavated sites.

The funding solution, as I have suggested in the past, is to tax the higher-end licit antiquities market, with proceeds going into a fund for international heritage protection.

Post-disaster response: Is priests spontaneously deciding to sleep in the ruins to stop temple looters the best we can do?

To deter looters, Buddhist priests are now sleeping amidst the ruins of their temples. Something akin to this was done, if memory serves, to try protect Angkor Wat as well. This kind of mobilization of believers in heritage is deeply moving.

It is also of importance that international agencies mobilize, as UNESCO is doing. But one big question that will have to be thought about after the fact is whether the UNESCO fact-finding mission structure is really the best way to deal with these kinds of disasters, or whether it makes more sense to invest the very scarce resources of UNESCO instead in disaster response plans so that even after a catastrophic event like this one there an in-country response team tied in to local volunteer groups is ready to get started assessing and mitigating, with call-back capacity to UNESCO and via UNESCO to the Smithsonian and other cultural heritage protection organizations. No such disaster plan appears to have been in place for Nepal. This despite 2 inscribed sites and 15 more on the tentative list of World Heritage Sites.

If a reporter can go undercover and reveal a smuggling network, why aren't the police and UNESCO doing so?

Much of interest in this story. If the Lagash relief is in fact genuine, and was dug around 2006 in southern Iraq, its appearance for sale on the Turkish border in 2015 reminds us that massive looting occurred between 2003 and 2008 during the US occupation. It also reminds us that dealers are willing to stockpile looted artifacts, especially valuable but "hot" ones, for very long periods until a buyer can be found. And it shows that the networks connecting smugglers with buyers are not independent chains but involve trading between middlemen -- a reasonable structure given the nature of the demand (one doesn't want to miss the chance to take advantage of the intermittent appearance of a possible high-end buyer).

But the key take-home point is not made so much as illustrated by the reporter's having to go undercover in order to get the story, but being able to do so without much difficulty or worry. That shows that it is not hard to get to those dealing, but that the way to get to them is via locally-originated but sometimes multi-nationally pursued sting operations -- not, in other words, via high-profile but rare seizures by customs agents, nor the kind of arms-length work INTERPOL and UNESCO normally do. Antiquities smuggling networks are fluid, evolving, and adjustable, and this requires fluid and adjustable counter-operations.

UNESCO does appear to be taking steps in the right direction, including establishing the "crack team" mentioned but not detailed in the article. Presumably it comes out of these meetings held last November and includes the carabinieri, who actually do the kind of work needed. But there have been no major take-downs of international networks since then, despite the ease with which the reporter was able to discover so much. Is the crack team involved in operations, or merely trainings?

Art Loss Register at work

Several fascinating bits of information in this article.

First, the itinerary of the object: from Nepal to the US and then to an end-buyer in China. 

Second, the role played by the Art Loss Register amongst dealers:

an expert hired to investigate the ownership of the piece informed Homsi that it was “almost assuredly” the same Samvara statue stolen in 1983 from the Itum Bahal Temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, court papers say.
Homsi then emailed another dealer about the statue on June 20, acknowledging that the piece had “the black spot of theft,” the court papers say. He added that he was “too nervous” to conduct a search through the Art Loss Register — a comprehensive database on stolen works — for fear he would be proven right, according to the court papers.

Presumably the Chinese buyer didn't bother to consult the ALR either.

Too bad it is not mandatory to consult the Art Loss Register and to post to it the object one plans to try to sell so that others might get a chance to look it over in case the ALR doesn't have it posted. But the dealers would have to decide that such requirements were in their best interest, or else the chances of them being put into law are zero.

Regional Conference Aims to Shut Down ISIS Funding from Antiquities Looting and Trafficking

This upcoming meeting may well be the most important conference of the many being held these days on the looting of archaeological sites in the Middle East. One hopes that it includes some pointed discussion of the use of emirates as conduits and destination countries for smuggled artifacts. 

Kerry in Sept. 2014: "our heritage is literally in peril in this moment, and we believe it is imperative that we act now"

John Kerry at the Metropolitan Museum, Sept. 22, 2014:

I want you to know that President Obama and our Administration are laser-focused on protecting the cultural heritage of countries all around the world. That is why we’re funding a landmark effort with the American Schools of Oriental Research to document the condition of cultural heritage sites in Syria. And we’re providing additional support to extend this effort into Iraq. We’re also doubling down on our support for Iraqi conservation experts and providing them with critical training on emergency documentation and disaster preparedness and response at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage.

Through the National Science Foundation, we’re partnering with the American Association for the Advancement of Science on a project that uses geospatial technologies to track the destruction of the historical sites in Syria. They just released a big study that proves the destruction of these sites publicly. And this is yet another wakeup call, and those who deny the evidence or choose excuses over action are playing with fire as a consequence.

Our heritage is literally in peril in this moment, and we believe it is imperative that we act now.

Stirring words. But I noted at the time that Kerry's rhetoric was unaccompanied by any specifics about what action the administration would take, and I worried that it would be limited to the entirely necessary but utterly insufficient actions Kerry was touting -- documenting and monitoring the destruction -- when what was needed was action to stop the destruction likely to occur going forward. Documenting and monitoring won't do that; carefully designed military action arguably will, if only for major sites located in isolated areas.

If it was imperative that we act now in September 2014, what about today?

Cuno: partage is the solution to antiquities at risk

As one might have expected, James Cuno uses the disasters unfolding now in Iraq to beat the drum once again for restoring the old system of partage. He is right, of course, to say that we should be thankful that even though ISIS destroyed the Assyrian statues in the Mosul Museum and at Nineveh some statues remain safe in museums inaccessible to ISIS' sledgehammers. And surely he is also correct to argue that the most prudent policy for protecting cultural heritage from disasters is to distribute them around the world rather than concentrating them in one place.

The problem with partage as a solution is (at least) three-fold:
a) it ignores other ways in which antiquities might be -- and indeed are being -- dispersed, ways that would not be permanent (i.e., temporary transfers to safer countries as precautionary measures, as Iran is now offering to do, or long-term exchanges), and that would be much more palatable to countries that wish to retain ownership of cultural property they deem part of their cultural patrimony.

b) it does nothing to protect the razing of archaeological sites and the smashing of non-portable antiquities.

c) it does nothing to stop the looting of portable antiquities from museums or the market-driven digging-up of archaeological sites by looters. 

b) and c) would be less troubling if we were not now in the middle of a terrible crisis in which major sites are reportedly being looted and bulldozed. Failing to address those issues and fixating instead on a change in policy that even if enacted now would have zero impact on either b) or c) is insensitive.

It is fine to call for partage as one among several possible long-term solutions based on the principle of dispersion-for-safety's-sake. But what Cuno should also be doing is offering or at least calling for solutions to the immediate problems of stopping the razing of sites and the looting of both sites and museums, and putting some of the Getty's considerable resources into getting the job done.
 

Gen. Dempsey willing to "consider" acting to stop ISIS attacks on archaeological sites

 Gen. Dempsey opens the door a crack to possible action.

Protecting archaeological sites will always come low on the priority list, unless either the military is told it must act (hello, Obama, hello?) or there is a good military reason. In most instances there won't be a good military reason. In the case of ISIS riding gangs of zealots out far into the deserts on bulldozers and excavators that we are shooting at elsewhere, however, there is clearly a military benefit to be gained. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. So it is hard to see why Gen. Dempsey is only willing to consider the idea of going after them, instead of doing so.

But generals will do what they are told. So one can only conclude that Obama and Kerry (who gave a fine speech at the Metropolitan Museum on the topic, empty words it seems) haven't put the pressure on. Which is disgraceful.

A caveat about reports of site razings

We still have no imagery of the bulldozing of Nimrud, or Hatra, or Dur Sharrukin, as reported by Iraqi heritage officials, and hence no confirmation of how extensive the damage is (or even whether that damage has actually occurred). Reputable media outlets from CNN to the New York Times to NPR have spread the stories, and the documented iconoclasm at the Mosul Museum and Nineveh certainly lends them credibility. But without optical proof, we can't be certain.  

Should these sites turn out to be more or less intact after all, the error will no doubt be seized upon by the same looting deniers who declared no harm had been done at the Iraq Museum in 2003 because first reports mistakenly said the museum had been completely looted and it later turned out that "only" 15,000 artifacts were stolen, and who later pointed to the absence of looting on 8 sites as proof that there was no looting to speak of at the thousands of other sites in Iraq.

We should know the truth soon enough, once the site monitoring groups at Penn and the AAAS get done looking at the latest satellite imagery. But the very fact that we don't know what the facts are, and that we have to wait days to get them, is more important than whatever the facts turn out to be. For it is a sign that the US military is not taking seriously the need to prevent ISIS from getting to major sites. Doing so would have meant setting up a realtime monitoring regime covering not just the sites but the roads leading to the sites, so that bulldozers and trucks heading out to a site would be spotted, targeted and destroyed on the way to, not from, the sites. No such realtime monitoring system exists, it seems. That's a big problem. The Penn Cultural Heritage Center and AAAS projects are crucial for tracking the long-term effect of clandestine digging and must continue to be supported, but they were not designed for the quick turnaround needed to deal with this particular challenge. That's the military's job.

So if it does turn out that Hatra and Dur Sharrukin are not yet victims of bulldozing or dynamiting, we should thank God for our good luck, consider this a second wake-up call after the televised ISIS iconoclasm at Nineveh, and redouble our effort to force the military to step up with an operational plan -- realtime monitoring plus operational capacity to neutralize the bulldozers before and not after they get to the site -- before what happened at Nineveh is repeated.

Sorry, not my table: US military dodges responsibility to do something about site destruction in Iraq

This from the US News and World Report:

“Our forces in Iraq are there to advise and assist Iraqis,” a defense official tells U.S. News on the condition of anonymity. “We have no commanders there who are responsible for sectors on the ground.”

A spokesman for the Combined Joint Task Force, or CJTF, overseeing the operation confirmed the limitations on how it can help stem the Islamic State group’s destructive acts.

“The CJTF is taking these reports very seriously. Daesh actions such as this underscore the necessity to defeat Daesh. The CJTF and our partners on the ground are committed to ending the atrocities committed by Daesh,” the spokesman says, responding to questions by email from a U.S. military base in Kuwait.

“Stopping smuggling, money laundering and other criminal activities committed by Daesh are also part of the broader coalition effort, but it is not under the auspices of CJTF.”

 Always nice to hear that reports are being taken seriously. That makes everyone feel so much better. But the question is whether the US has commanders who order airstrikes against targets on the ground, including bulldozers, backhoes, and other excavating equipment being used to raze sites. The answer is, obviously, yes. Here's a report from yesterday:

In Iraq, two air strikes near Al Huwijah destroyed six excavators and hit a tactical unit. Near Fallujah, four strikes hit two tactical units, a fighting position and destroyed three vehicles. Other strikes near Haditha, Kirkuk and Mosul also struck tactical units, fighting positions, excavators, vehicles and other targets.

 "Excavators" are being hit. Just not the excavators headed for archaeological sites. 

That the same article in which the CJTF demurs also includes another rousing statement from Secretary of State Kerry affirming our deep regard for cultural heritage only adds insult to injury. The Obama administration needs to crack some heads, or they will be as culpable of negligence as the military.

What one military manual says about site protection

From ATP 3-39.30, "Security and Mobility Support", Oct. 2014:

-->

Protect Key Personnel and Facilities 1-47. When required, military forces may extend protection and support to key civilian personnel to ensure their continued contribution to the overall operation. In the interest of transparency, military forces specifically request and carefully negotiate this protection. Similarly, the long-term success of any intervention often relies on the ability of external actors to protect and maintain critical infrastructure until the HN can resume that responsibility. Protection of key facilities may be either an immediate or long-term requirement. The list of essential tasks may include an initial response and transformation, described as follows:

 l An initial response in which military forces—

            n Protect government-sponsored civilian reconstruction and stabilization personnel. n Protect contractor and civilian reconstruction and stabilization personnel and resources. n Provide emergency logistic support, as required. n Protect and secure places of religious worship and cultural sites. n Protect and secure critical infrastructure, natural resources, civil registries, and property ownership documents. n Protect and secure strategically important institutions (such as government buildings; medical treatment facilities and public health infrastructure; the central bank, national treasury, and integral commercial banks; museums; and religious sites). n Protect and secure military depots, equipment, ammunition dumps, and means of communications. n Identify, secure, protect, and coordinate disposition for stockpiles of munitions and CBRN materiel and precursors, facilities, and adversaries with technical expertise. l A transformation in which military forces build HN capacity to protect— n Civilian reconstruction and stabilization personnel. n Public infrastructure and institutions. n Military infrastructure.

 This doesn't specifically call for airstrikes, and it is troubling that the document is tasking site protection to the Army military police, whose capacity to take active measures may be limited. But someone in the military chain of command should have been on top of the threat that ISIS posed to archaeological sites. That no action was taken indicates negligence.

A trip down (bad) memory lane: recommendations from 2006 for military action to protect archaeological sites

Back in 2006, in response to the disastrous looting of Iraq's national museum and the consequent untrammeled looting of sites around the country over a period of years during and following the American occupation, I pulled together experts from the military, the Pentagon, the heritage conservation community, and the museum world to see if we could figure out what had gone wrong and develop some recommendations for steps that could be taken to do better in the future. We gathered our findings and recommendations in a published volume, Antiquities Under Siege: Cultural Heritage Protection after the Iraq War. A number of the recommendations were in fact adopted.

I thought I'd look back at the list of recommendations to see if any of them anticipated the need to deal with the problem we are seeing today at Nimrud and it appears Hatra. The answer (pp. 284-5) is yes:

During any transitional period, in the likely event that the antiquities ministry is unable to operate effectively without backup provided by a central authority, the military should take one or more of the following steps, after consultation with the antiquities ministry:
i. Preclude road access to selected sites by sowing the road with tire-puncturing tacks.
ii. If feasible, make a show of force at strategically selected sites, confiscating, disabling, or destroying a few of the vehicles used by potential looters as a deterrent to future potential looters.
vi. Create monitoring systems to identify sites under assault or threat of assault by looters.

It's too late for Nimrud, and probably for Hatra as well. One can only hope that now that Iraq's government is publicly begging for this kind of military action, our feckless leaders will lift their fingers enough to see that such tiny but crucial actions be undertaken.