Baghdad loot hits the world art markets

A good summary of the situation in today's Telegraph:

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. . . [but] 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. . .

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. . .

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". . .

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. . .

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 identified 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". . .

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. . .

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.

Posted by David on April 20, 2003 4:06 PM